Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service • Hacker News Board

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#11

Post by randyme » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:42 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

dianashk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's built on open data sets, including OpenStreetMap and OpenAddresses. In populated areas coverage is really good. Thanks to OpenAddresses, several countries have full address coverage. You can see the coverage map on openaddresses.io. New data gets added as these open data sources grow.

Why does OpenAddress need to exist separately from OSM? Can address geocoding data not be properly represented in OSM?

OpenAddresses is a directory of publicly available address lists provided by government agencies at various levels. It's designed to be bulk imported by machine.

Many addresses exist in OSM. But there's a preference from the OSM community that data be entered by users familiar with their areas, that they can verify on the ground. Imports have happened in OSM, such as the controversial TIGER import in the US years ago, and the NYC building dataset more recently. But these require a lot of effort and attention to manage well.

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#12

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 12:36 AM UTC

randyme wrote: post #11

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does OpenAddress need to exist separately from OSM? Can address geocoding data not be properly represented in OSM?

OpenAddresses is a directory of publicly available address lists provided by government agencies at various levels. It's designed to be bulk imported by machine. Many addresses exist in OSM. But there's a preference from the OSM community that data be entered by users familiar with their areas, that they can verify on the ground. Imports have happened in OSM, such as the controversial TIGER import in the US years ago…

So could OpenAddresses be merged into OSM at some point? Would that make sense?

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#13

Post by iask » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 1:04 AM UTC

Never heard of mapzen until this post. Looks pretty cool. I am always skeptical of the lifetime of these service providers. I've seen quite a few come and go...and spent countless hours adopting replacement.

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#14

Post by dianashk » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 1:04 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

randyme wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAddresses is a directory of publicly available address lists provided by government agencies at various levels. It's designed to be bulk imported by machine. Many addresses exist in OSM. But there's a preference from the OSM community that data be entered by users familiar with their areas, that they can verify on the ground. Imports have happened in OSM, such as the controversial TIGER import in the US years ago…

So could OpenAddresses be merged into OSM at some point? Would that make sense?

It's not out of the question, however there are many obstacles to overcome, such as licensing, validation, and the fact that the OSM community generally insists on manually entered data.

I've heard many folks push for consolidation of various open data projects, so they aren't "competing" for contributions. However the reality is that they are currently very different and each serves to bridge a very specific gap.

In the meantime, it makes a lot of sense for projects relying on open data to pull all of these sources in, as Mapzen Search is doing, to ensure the best possible coverage.

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#15

Post by dianashk » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 1:16 AM UTC

iask wrote: post #13

Never heard of mapzen until this post. Looks pretty cool. I am always skeptical of the lifetime of these service providers. I've seen quite a few come and go...and spent countless hours adopting replacement.

Great point! As developers, we've all been there. Mapzen's mission is to create services that outlive the brand/company. Everything we do is open source and easy to stand up on your own.

Pelias, the project powering our Search service is written entirely in node.js + Elasticsearch, to make it accessible to the largest number of developers, because JavaScript.

We also host an instance of Pelias to make the service accessible for those that can't/won't run their own.

More details [here](https://mapzen.com/projects/search).

Re: Search up to 10K addresses with free holiday batch geocoding service

#16

Post by legulere » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

randyme wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAddresses is a directory of publicly available address lists provided by government agencies at various levels. It's designed to be bulk imported by machine. Many addresses exist in OSM. But there's a preference from the OSM community that data be entered by users familiar with their areas, that they can verify on the ground. Imports have happened in OSM, such as the controversial TIGER import in the US years ago…

So could OpenAddresses be merged into OSM at some point? Would that make sense?

That's the wrong question - the question is wether the sources from OpenAddresses can be merged into OSM. I know of at least Denmark that there was some address import.