<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABUOUO-gN-CaxgfD8Ov6Jua9UYFx-jFTEXhV0H9FGGm35xjO1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
PS: I'm using a lot of geocoding when I truly mean 'reverse
geocode', I only focus in getting full addresses back from
coordinates.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
That's probably the main difference. I focus on geocoding
(getting coordinates from an address). And when you have long
streets without housenumbers, Nominatim will give a result,
but the result can easily be 20 km off. Which is really
unacceptable. As you don't know how long the street is, you
can only assume that you have the correct place when the
housenumber is found.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
20 Km is unacceptable, but It's probably partly the fault of
nominatim code itself, I've been doing plenty of mods and the way it
finds (geocode) places is pretty complicated. I'm not saying
incorrect but it sure is huge (try forking it on github to find
out). And it's based on getting USA/GB address types in general.
Which means, when we deviate a bit from the 'current' de facto
standard that nominatim uses, we get less accurate results. That
doesn't mean it's not in OSM data. <br>
<br>
I've been playing a lot with the idea of creating a light-weight
geocoder api on top of Gazetteer. It also always intruiged me why
I was unable to get a postcode (but I did get a city) in a reverse
geocode on my own servers (at one point I installed enough
gazetteers to know the procedure by heart). But the public one did
find postal codes. I always used all their docs for my own
installs. That triggered me to patch the result set and include
postal codes by name and distance (coordinates as a source helps).
Which turned problematic in Brussels/Antwerp sometimes. But the
customers didn't really care if it was 1 code off.<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABUOUO-gN-CaxgfD8Ov6Jua9UYFx-jFTEXhV0H9FGGm35xjO1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<br>
So that's what I meant with the "1 in 40" statement.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
In that sense, you are probably right. You need to know how to feed
keywords in the correct order in the search page. In google you
can pretty much slam anything in it whatever the order, but they
probably use a 1000 of their nodes at once to figure that out.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABUOUO-gN-CaxgfD8Ov6Jua9UYFx-jFTEXhV0H9FGGm35xjO1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div><br>
And I agree that the data is becoming better and better. When
I started, my own street wasn't on the map (this triggered
me). Now the street network is good as complete (we even have
streets in the DB that are still under construction). So we
need to focus on other things. Those things are (according to
me):<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I love to add those under constructions, I check the site of my
municipality frequently for their names etc. I love to remap
places that have recently been reconstructed, like the R6 in
Mechelen/Sint-Katelijne-Waver for example. It took a year for
google to catch up. That's how I push people into mapping or make
customers aware that their name is on that map because I put it
there. They absolutely love that stuff.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABUOUO-gN-CaxgfD8Ov6Jua9UYFx-jFTEXhV0H9FGGm35xjO1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<br>
<ul>
<li>Addresses including housenumbers</li>
<li>POI's including extra information s.a. opening hours</li>
<li>Extra info on roads (maxspeed, lanes ...)</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
agreed with all. The easiest way I find to add addresses/street
info is;<br>
- know the place<br>
- put all merchants in it ('zelfstandigen', bakery, chinese food,
vending machines). Use their site or the municipality to find the
addresses, every place does that with the small shops. They won't
mind this at all, in fact, they love the exposure. And it's an
official list and you can use it, it is public information by
nature.<br>
- Just start with what you know. Try finding bread here in the
area at night, only for that reason I add all those vending machines
so I can follow the android in my quest for food ;-)<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABUOUO-gN-CaxgfD8Ov6Jua9UYFx-jFTEXhV0H9FGGm35xjO1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>I just wanted to see how our addresses are evolving, as a
result of the other blog posts.and it wasn't that hard to get
some indicative numbers.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
It's useful exercise, which I applaud. Only at the very end of my
initial reaction I started to realise the 'reverse geocoding' fact
isn't typical use for everyone ;-)<br>
<br>
In that sense, there is a german oriented plugin to add
maxspeed/road signs to JOSM. It's a great tool and a way to put some
standards in. It has a way to customize, I did like 5% of it to map
road signs. It supports mapping it on a way and just signs next to
the road( less useful imho). 'road signs plugin' it's called. So
I'm trying to make a Belgian version, in the recent road signs
discussion this could prove useful for extra quality.<br>
<br>
Mvg,<br>
<br>
Glenn<br>
</body>
</html>