@mappingmashups Tomorrow (Tues July 7) on #geowebchat, join special guest @philiphubs from @here to talk about #geocoding! Noon PDT, 3pm EDT, 1900 UTC
@here .@philiphubs will host the next #geowebchat! Join the conversation Tuesday, July 7 at 12AM Pacific time mappingmashups.net/geowebchat/
@jeresuikkila Do you know how your phone converts addresses to coordinates? Join #geowebchat in 30 minutes to chat with experts like @philiphubs
@jeresuikkila Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
#geowebchat
…, who?
Not who! “Where”!
@erictheise will you be dropping by the #geowebchat today, @nixzusehen? it’s about #geocoding and it starts at noon, pacific. twelve minutes from now!
@riordan @erictheise You think I’d miss #geowebchat?!
@erictheise never doubted for a moment, @riordan. you didn’t miss #geobreakfast east and, come to think of it, neither did @nixzusehen. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups Starting now: our monthly #geowebchat twitter chat! Today’s topic is #geocoding with guest hosts @philiphubs and @jeresuikkila from @here!
@philiphubs Hello and welcome to the #geowebchat – Today it’s about geocoding!
@mappingmashups As always, if you want to join #geowebchat, make sure to include the hashtag in your tweets. If you want to ignore us, just mute the tag.
@mappingmashups Tools like @TweetChat tweetchat.com/room/geowebchat are a good way to follow along with #geowebchat.
@philiphubs Thanks @mappingmashups. My name is Philip and I work at @here as a Product Manager for our Geocoder API. Who is with us today? #geowebchat
@mappingmashups And now, without further ado, let me hand things over to @philiphubs, our guest #geocoding expert! #geowebchat
@OpenCageData alright #geowebchat #geocoding we’re here, looking forward to your questions
@OpenCageData and by here I of course mean 41.3966,2.1988 #geowebchat #geocoding
@mappingmashups @OpenCageData Hah, you already want to talk about #reversegeocoding? :) #geowebchat
@riordan @philiphubs Greetings from the @mapzen Pelias geocoder team. I wonder what today’s geocoder builder to user ratio’s going to be? #geowebchat
@philiphubs @OpenCageData Hola and welcome! Who else do we have? #geowebchat
@JessiBreen Lurking. #geowebchat
@philiphubs @riordan @mapzen Right, you are taking away my first question :) #geowebchat
@Innisfree @JessiBreen I’m lurking too. #geowebchat.
@ChrisSheldrick2 @philiphubs @mappingmashups @here I’m here from @what3words look forward to chatting #geowebchat
@mappingmashups @riordan, good question. I’m definitely more of a geocoder user than a builder. #geowebchat Although I try to avoid geocoding when I can..
@philiphubs So let’s start: Are you a user or a creator of geocoding? #geowebchat
@blackmad @riordan @philiphubs @mapzen might be here. #geowebchat
@JessiBreen Occasional user. #geowebchat
@OpenCageData @ChrisSheldrick2 @philiphubs @mappingmashups @here @what3words Hi Chris, I’m on the keyboard at w3w.co/earliest.saint… #geowebchat
@erictheise i’m a geocode consumer. application developer, sometime cartographer. #geowebchat
@riordan @blackmad This #geowebchat was kinda made for you.
@OpenCageData @mappingmashups the rise of mobiles means reverse is now the most common type of geocoding #geowebchat
@Innisfree User – social science research requires geocoding these days. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups @OpenCageData Maybe we should define #geocoding and reverse geocoding? #geowebchat
@riordan @philiphubs I’m a lot of both. I just joined the Mapzen Pelias team (a little over 2 weeks ago) #geowebchat (1/2)
@erictheise i’ve tried many of free(ish) and open(ish) ones, installed Tiger Geocoder into my postgis, broken terms of service, i confess. #geowebchat
@philiphubs @OpenCageData @mappingmashups Yes, reverse geocoding is rising in usage from mobile. What is your share? Forward vs. reverse #geowebchat
@OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups #geowebchat hmm, just realized I don’t have recent numbers, but reverse is on the rise.
@riordan @OpenCageData Exactly. It’s why Factual’s orienting their product around their reverse geocoder. #geowebchat
@philiphubs Geocoding is the ability to match addresses to the correct location (latitude and longitude) on a map. Do you agree? #geowebchat
@blackmad Writer of twofishes.net coarse geocoder, ex-google geocoder, seeker/cosnumer of street level geocoding APIs #geowebchat
@riordan @philiphubs Worked on historical geocoders back @nypl_labs, & search places in 4SQ, Google, Apple Maps every day #geowebchat (2/2)
@OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups #geowebchat common use case is app devs. phone tells them coords, they want to show humans an understandable loc
@mappingmashups Quick defn: #geocoding is taking an address (or descriptive location) and finding coordinates. Reverse is lat/lon -> address. #geowebchat
@philiphubs Reverse Geocoding gets the next street address or area information for the given geographic coordinate. #geowebchat
@riordan @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups Translating an indecipherable addressing system into a semi-semantic one #geowebchat
@RebeccaSiGo I didn’t know there was a #geowebchat. How to serve breakfast through Twitter?
@OpenCageData @riordan @philiphubs @mappingmashups #geowebchat yes, hence why we’d love it if others help with this project github.com/OpenCageData/a…
@ChrisSheldrick2 We @what3words have a #geocoder & #reversegeocoder converting 3 word addresses <> coordinates. The 3 words are dictionary words. #geowebchat
@alogicalfallacy @JessiBreen Lurking club represent. Have spent many hours teaching reverse geocoding on mobile. Less so traditional. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups RT @SamuelLeach Geocoding is finding a boundary for an address. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups RT @ColinReillyNY @philiphubs @mappingmashups @here Hello from NYC DoITT developers of the Geoclient API #geowebchat
@dianashk more pelias people in the house. mostly geocoder builder. user when testing. #geowebchat
@philiphubs At @here the Geocoder API usage is 90% reverse, 10% forward. But forward geocoding is the more interesting problem to solve #geowebchat
@riordan @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups Hear hear! This only works when we work together and hold hands. #geowebchat
@riordan For historical texts, geoparsing and forward geocoding has always been the use case, like what @schuyler did with Gutencarte #geowebchat
@vicchi @mappingmashups True. But the best geocoders are those that work with the way humans speak and that’s not always addresses #geowebchat
@riordan @OpenCageData We’re tremendously excited about the github.com/OpenCageData/a… and can’t wait to contribute. #geowebchat (1/2)
@riordan @OpenCageData This only works when we can empower people to bring local knowledge of the places they care about. Easily. #geowebchat (2/2)
@vicchi @mappingmashups Colloquial, vernacular and informal geographies are essential to good geocoding and geoparsing #geowebchat
@philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups Show us some examples Gary. I like how Colombia or Salt Lake City addresses work, e.g. 1700 E 1700 S #geowebchat
@jeresuikkila .@ChrisSheldrick2 @what3words we are tweeting from w3w.co/scarcely.path…. today. Otherwise known as Downtown Berkeley #geowebchat
@mappingmashups cc #geowebchat RT @SamuelLeach @ChrisSheldrick2 @mappingmashups Having the bounding box, or precise boundary useful for quantitative work.
@OpenCageData @riordan we’re all sitting anxiously refreshing the pull request page! #geowebchat
@OpenCageData @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups #geowebchat A good example – if I say let’s meet for dinner in Chinatown you prob know what I mean 1/
@OpenCageData @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups #geowebchat but in most cities that is not an “official” location 2/
@Innisfree Oregon is blank except for Portland. What’s up UO? @SVendetta86 @jblairpdx @map_chicago openaddresses.io #geowebchat
@riordan @OpenCageData @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups Which comes back to incorporating colloquial geographies into our gazetteers #geowebchat
@mappingmashups @OpenCageData Or even if “Chinatown” is an official location, people might perceive its boundaries differently from the city. #geowebchat
@philiphubs @OpenCageData @vicchi @mappingmashups Neighborhood names are definetly one input to geocoding #geowebchat
@mapzen tune into #geowebchat for a fascinating discussion about geocoding (and reverse geocoding!)
@juliansimioni @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups I think the idea is no one thinks “Im at 1600 Pennsylvania av”, just “im at the white house” #geowebchat
@erictheise always find way in grid-addressed city @philiphubs–i’m from chicago–but isn’t navigating a new orleans better for the brain? #geowebchat
@ChrisSheldrick2 @jeresuikkila Great location. That’s one spacious car park. Not to be confused with the lovely scarcely.path.land #geowebchat
@riordan @mappingmashups @OpenCageData Here in New York we have 3 “Chinatown”‘s. It’s a hard disambiguation #geowebchat
@philiphubs @OpenCageData @vicchi @mappingmashups General Zao Chicken anyone? *gettinghungry* #geowebchat
@dianashk if you make geocoders, how do you test it? if you use them, how do compare/evaluate available options? #geowebchat
@vicchi @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups And let’s not forget places which don’t have an address because they don’t exist #geowebchat
@vicchi @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups Not fictitious places but territories which just don’t have formal addressing ##geowebchat
@mappingmashups @ChrisSheldrick2 @jeresuikkila I find that confusing w/ @what3words: w3w.co/scarcely.path…. isn’t near scarcely.path.land #geowebchat
@ChrisSheldrick2 @riordan @OpenCageData Great point on ambiguity. Ambiguity was something we strived to eliminate when creating @what3words #geowebchat
@philiphubs @dianashk We have a huge test data set we run every night to ensure we don’t break anything while coding. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups @ChrisSheldrick2 @jeresuikkila And I’m at w3w.co/defeat.labels…. but my coworker at the next desk is quench.nature.tribe #geowebchat
@alogicalfallacy I’d be curious to hear @R_RoseRedwood thoughts on geocoding ambiguity given his work on street numbering, modernity, etc. #geowebchat
@ChrisSheldrick2 @mappingmashups @jeresuikkila @what3words Is it more or less confusing/error prone than if both were in the same city? #geowebchat
@philiphubs Is your input for geocoding typically an address, partial address, place name, a combination of all? #geowebchat
@riordan @philiphubs @dianashk Which raises another question: how to disambiguate issues in the (ever-changing) data from issues in code? #geowebchat
@juliansimioni @philiphubs how did you build up that dataset? from user querys? manually? how do you decide what your geocoder “should” return? #geowebchat
@vicchi @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups Oh & places which officialdom doesn’t recognise – favelas, slums, shanty towns #geowebchat
@mappingmashups RT @dianashk we’re working on same sort of thing, but trying to make a communal data set for general purpose geocoder testing. #geowebchat
@philiphubs @riordan @dianashk By doing daily tests we can seperate code changes from data changes. #geowebchat
@vicchi @mappingmashups @SamuelLeach @ChrisSheldrick2 Polygons need geocoding love too and make life easier but are buggers to source #geowebchat
@mappingmashups @jeresuikkila @ChrisSheldrick2 Good point. @what3words makes a reasonable tradeoff to be more error-resistant #geowebchat
@erictheise throwing this on the heap: any thoughts on @richardf’s @sotmus mention of app where you could walk & say addresses into #osm? #geowebchat
@philiphubs @juliansimioni It’s both, a combination of real user queries and “ground truth” data we collected. QA is so important!! #geowebchat
@riordan @erictheise @richardf @sotmus Audio narration over gps trace is apparently already part of the JOSM workflow (?!). So yeah. #geowebchat
@erictheise (would have to watch @richardf’s talk video or dig out notes, can’t easily find a repo for or mention of that of which i speak) #geowebchat
@philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups @SamuelLeach @ChrisSheldrick2 Do you mean admin boundaries, cartos, and the like? #geowebchat
@erictheise o, @riordan nails it, thanks! #geowebchat
@ColinReillyNY Proliferation of alias/vanity addresses in NYC is a real problem for us. How do other cities handle? #geowebchat
@vicchi @riordan Careful, once you get @tim_waters started on psychogeography it’s a wild ride but a good one! #geowebchat
@mappingmashups cc #geowebchat RT @dianashk probably one of the most critical things in this space! what are your thoughts on a single public data set?
@vicchi @philiphubs @mappingmashups @SamuelLeach @ChrisSheldrick2 Precisely! But there is no one true map beyond admins #geowebchat
@philiphubs @ColinReillyNY Oh, these are common across the globe. Some countries have different names in different languages for same street #geowebchat
@OpenCageData @riordan @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups #geowebchat any country in particular you’re targeting? Try geocoding India #mypredicitonpain
@vicchi @OpenCageData @riordan @philiphubs @mappingmashups Think globally! It’s the only way on the interwebs these days #geowebchat
@philiphubs @ColinReillyNY This is why we have a “normalize names” feature in HERE Geocoder and keep many alternative names in our map data #geowebchat
@dianashk #geowebchat @philiphubs would love to know that as well. we’re trying to cover all the basis by working on NLP as well as address parsing.
@freyfogle @riordan @philiphubs @vicchi @mappingmashups #geowebchat here’s a talk I gave re: our Indian efforts at @nestoria slideshare.net/lokku/geocodin…
@philiphubs @dianashk There are various paths. Some do a sort of auto-correction before the index match, others prefer fuzzy matching #geowebchat
@ColinReillyNY @dianashk @philiphubs All above + intersection + blockface #geowebchat
@riordan Attn geo users: There’s a fabulous tool in @freyfogle’s slides to compare (forward geocoding) services gisgraphy.com/compare/ #geowebchat
@vicchi @jeresuikkila @OpenCageData @riordan @philiphubs @mappingmashups That’s a whole other #canofworms #geowebchat
@freyfogle @riordan #geowebchat unfortunately I’m not certain that tool is maintained. The copyright on the page leads me to believe it isn’t
@jeresuikkila @riordan @freyfogle interesting results for that “chinatown” mentioned earlier #geowebchat
@Innisfree RT @riordan Tool for comparing geocoding results. Thanks @freyfogle! gisgraphy.com/compare/ #geowebchat
@mappingmashups cc #geowebchat RT @riordan: @vicchi @jeresuikkila @OpenCageData @philiphubs @mappingmashups Don’t get me started on Swatch Beats Time
@philiphubs @riordan @vicchi @jeresuikkila @OpenCageData @mappingmashups I had one of those! #confessions #geowebchat
@harizh @riordan @freyfogle how do we get a new geocoding service (such as pelias) into gisgraphy? #geowebchat
@philiphubs Time is nearly up: What do you see needs improvement to make geocoding better? #geowebchat
@vicchi @mappingmashups @riordan @OpenCageData @philiphubs You need to open a can of worms to get data sets essential for geocoding #geowebchat
@OpenCageData @vicchi @mappingmashups @riordan @philiphubs do NOT say licensing, do NOT say licensing, do NOT say licensing #geowebchat
@vicchi @OpenCageData @mappingmashups @riordan @philiphubs Licensing. Licensing. Licensing. Don’t dodge the issue. It’s not going away #geowebchat
@freyfogle @harizh @riordan #geowebchat Not a clue. I am just a user, not the maintainer.
@mappingmashups @vicchi @OpenCageData @riordan @philiphubs Appropriately, we had a #geowebchat about geodata licenses back in Feb: mappingmashups.net/2015/02/03/geo…
@dianashk @ColinReillyNY @philiphubs intersections are really interesting. wonder how important they are globaly. #geowebchat
@iandees Hey #geowebchat, not enough pull requests being opened for github.com/openaddresses/…. Share the data you’ve found!
@riordan @dianashk @ColinReillyNY @philiphubs Intersections is apparently “a thing”. It’s in Google, not in Nominatim. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups Thanks to @philiphubs for hosting today’s #geowebchat! We’ve reached the end of our hour, but everyone feel free to keep chatting.
@riordan Seconded. Get in on @openaddresses. Help make it better! #geowebchat
@philiphubs @riordan @dianashk @ColinReillyNY Oh yes, for HERE Geocoder we have customers doing nothing but intersection geocoding #geowebchat
@ColinReillyNY @riordan @dianashk @philiphubs It’s in Geoclient as well. Represents over 10% of all NYC 311 geocodes. #geowebchat
@mappingmashups I’ll post the transcript of today’s #geowebchat shortly at mappingmashups.net/geowebchat. Next chat will be the same time, on August 4th. Topic TBD
@philiphubs @dianashk @ColinReillyNY This is why HERE Geocoder also offer the output for cross streets with house no. results #geowebchat
@dianashk @philiphubs NLP will be the next leap in geocoding. as others mentioned, understanding the way people talk about locations #geowebchat
@riordan @philiphubs Ultimately, better open data improves geocoding. We can raise the global baseline; lower everyone’s costs. #geowebchat
@harizh @philiphubs @riordan @dianashk @ColinReillyNY how do you guys do intersections? at the time of data import or at query time? #geowebchat
@philiphubs Thanks @mappingmashups for this #geowebchat it was great! Thanks to all the participants. For those in the Bay Area, love to meet in person!
@jeresuikkila @dianashk @philiphubs “meet me at the bottom of the stairs of the big white church” always worked for foreigners in Helsinki #geowebchat
@juliansimioni @philiphubs outreach towards orgs with data. there are so many govs with data that could help us if we could just get to it #geowebchat
@riordan Seconded. Get in on @openaddresses. Help make it better! #geowebchat twitter.com/iandees/status…
@philiphubs @harizh @riordan @dianashk @ColinReillyNY We offer both. Put both names in input or in separate fields. #geowebchat
@juliansimioni @philiphubs imagine all the tiny geo teams in muni govs that just need to be helped a bit and could easily open their data #geowebchat
@ColinReillyNY @harizh @philiphubs @riordan @dianashk we process the data on import. #geowebchat the chat that wont end…
@erictheise get on down to a #geobreakfast, @philiphubs, fridays, 8:30-10a, #PorkStoreCafe16thSt across from the Roxie Theater. #geowebchat
@philiphubs @juliansimioni I totally agree! Sourcing data is one of the biggest cost drivers for us at HERE too. We have over 80k sources #geowebchat
@vicchi @mappingmashups Thanks Alan; as always #geowebchat was geotastic!
@philiphubs @erictheise Thanks!! #geowebchat
@dianashk @philiphubs @mappingmashups thanks for hosting and moderating #geowebchat
@philiphubs #geobreakfast latitude: 37.7651215, longitude: -122.4226074 next Friday 8:30-10 am #geowebchat – Thanks @erictheise
@vicchi @dianashk @philiphubs @mappingmashups Perfectly said, #geowebchat is an geo-institution