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Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

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Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#61

Post by dwyerm »

LarryMade2 wrote: post #55

Seems like reinventing a solid wheel with a disposable one... I'm more for Latitude and Longitude: - Latitude/Longitude have been around for a long time, established, proven reasonably reliable. - Ultimate more calculable, no need for lookup/conversion - No language issues (three words seem to be primarily English) also unless it becomes an international standard whats to stop someone making a similar service with di…

You are fortunate that lat/long is sufficient for your use-case.

In my experience, the problem is that it isn't as exact as you'd think, especially when your measurement passes back and forth between reality, the idealized cartesian lat/long, and node/distance understandings of road networks. At a previous company, our map provider moved the entire United States three meters to the west and we spent the next week re-adjusting endpoints that were suddenly in medians, on overpasses, etc.

tl;dr: Nothing's easy.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#62

Post by TheRealPomax »

When does a location become an address? Because as far as I can tell, this is a geolocation scheme, not an address system.

(As far as I know, an address is for "addressing" a person, except by mail rather than by spoken means, which is why it's based on identifying a building and even room in that building)

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#63

Post by edent »

roberdam wrote: post #44

There is https://xaddress.org 1) Opensource and free 2) Can be used offline 3) Designed to be used in low tech environments and decoded by hand 4) Multilanguage 5) Error correction incorporated with visual avatar. 6) Short code for storing or linking. 7) Works with any map. 8) Yow know is an address when you see it. ----------------------------------------- Here is a comparision side by side of each option For GPS :…

My office has the suffix "AFRAID SPEAK" - I'm not sure my bosses would like that!

It's one of the problems with word lists. At any sufficient length, you'll get an offensive combination.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#64

Post by jandrewrogers »

LarryMade2 wrote: post #55

Seems like reinventing a solid wheel with a disposable one... I'm more for Latitude and Longitude: - Latitude/Longitude have been around for a long time, established, proven reasonably reliable. - Ultimate more calculable, no need for lookup/conversion - No language issues (three words seem to be primarily English) also unless it becomes an international standard whats to stop someone making a similar service with di…

You need to specify latitude/longitude as a specific relationship relative to a specific reference surface. Polar coordinates alone are insufficient for consistent addressing.

For example, you could specify the latitude/longitude be interpreted as geodetic coordinates relative to the WGS84 ellispoid, neither of which will always be true when working with unspecified polar coordinates.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#65

Post by linsomniac »

I think a more accurate description is "Open Source Lat/Long Alternative". Addresses, at least in my part of the world, work relatively well for telling a person where you are, given some knowledge of the town.

I can tell someone "College between Drake and Prospect" and they can picture it in their head. Sure, it requires some level of knowledge of the town, but no level of knowledge of the town is going to make "HW8C+FH" something that someone can picture. They're going to have to plug it into their phone.

I work in real estate, and this doesn't really solve anything for our system either. These codes don't solve our address problems (of which there are many). It doesn't solve parcel identification. Not really sure what it does solve other than shorter lat/long.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#66

Post by roberdam »

edent wrote: post #63
roberdam wrote: post #44

There is https://xaddress.org 1) Opensource and free 2) Can be used offline 3) Designed to be used in low tech environments and decoded by hand 4) Multilanguage 5) Error correction incorporated with visual avatar. 6) Short code for storing or linking. 7) Works with any map. 8) Yow know is an address when you see it. ----------------------------------------- Here is a comparision side by side of each option For GPS :…

My office has the suffix "AFRAID SPEAK" - I'm not sure my bosses would like that! It's one of the problems with word lists. At any sufficient length, you'll get an offensive combination.

hoover your mouse on any of the words and it tell you how many aditional words are available, click on any of the words to change it for other more suitable if you don't like the default.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#67

Post by meerkat14 »

drinckes wrote: post #40
Tharkun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The docs also seem to indicate that 3mx3m is the smallest grid they can address, but at the same they use addressing in slums as a use case...who has that much real estate in the slums?

Hi - plus codes founder here. You can just keep adding digits and the area gets smaller. The way I think of it is: +XX "house" (13x13 meters) +XXX "bathroom" (3.5x2.8 meters) +XXXX "chair" (87x56cm) +XXXXX "envelope" (22x11cm) In Kolkata the NGO (Addressing the Unaddressed) are using +XXXX codes.

Wait a minute. How are Kolkatans with (probably) cheap phones getting their hands on coordinates that accurate when phone GPS is usually only good to within ~5m?[1] I assume the postal workers are getting high end equipment?

[1] "GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky" -- https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#69

Post by rkangel »

Tomte wrote: post #52
yoz-y wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a previous discussion about the topic it was mentioned that an earthquake can move a road a few meters to a side. Tectonic shift might be less important but physical relocation could be. A road could be moved du to a large urban work in the area for example.

I know that. But why do you insist that a location code stays the same? The location has really changed. Plus codes are not street addresses.

> Plus codes are not street addresses.

One of the main use cases for plus codes is to be a street address in places for which street addresses are challenging.

To put it another way - we almost always use co-ordinates to help us find a particular physical object (peak of mountain, end of runway, house on street). Co-ordinates that shift with tectonic movement are most useful for that.

Re: Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses

#70

Post by rkangel »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #6

Skimming through the docs, even though warts of postal addressing are mentioned, this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes rather than unified hierarchical postal addressing (which is still an accomplishment, and something I can see a need for). Though this seems to work for latin scripts only I guess. For actually representing global postal addressing schemes with all warts and historic practices, I know no…

> this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes

It's a Base-20 encoding of lat/long.

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