Address geocoding
Address geocoding, or simply geocoding, is the process of taking a text-based description of a location, such as an address or the name of a place, and returning geographic coordinates, frequently latitude/longitude pair, to identify a location on the Earth's surface.[1] Reverse geocoding, on the other hand, converts geographic coordinates to a description of a location, usually the name of a place or an addressable location. Geocoding relies on a computer representation of address points, the street / road network, together with postal and administrative boundaries.
Not to be confused with Geocode, Geolocating, or Geotagging.The geographic coordinates representing locations often vary greatly in positional accuracy. Examples include building centroids, land parcel centroids, interpolated locations based on thoroughfare ranges, street segments centroids, postal code centroids (e.g. ZIP codes, CEDEX), and Administrative division Centroids.
In rural areas or other places lacking high quality street network data and addressing, GPS is useful for mapping a location. For traffic accidents, geocoding to a street intersection or midpoint along a street centerline is a suitable technique. Most highways in developed countries have mile markers to aid in emergency response, maintenance, and navigation. It is also possible to use a combination of these geocoding techniques — using a particular technique for certain cases and situations and other techniques for other cases. In contrast to geocoding of structured postal address records, toponym resolution maps place names in unstructured document collections to their corresponding spatial footprints.
Research[edit]
Research has introduced a new approach to the control and knowledge aspects of geocoding, by using an agent-based paradigm.[12] In addition to the new paradigm for geocoding, additional correction techniques and control algorithms have been developed.[13] The approach represents the geographic elements commonly found in addresses as individual agents. This provides a commonality and duality to control and geographic representation. In addition to scientific publication, the new approach and subsequent prototype gained national media coverage in Australia.[14] The research was conducted at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia.[15]
With the recent advance in Deep Learning and Computer Vision, a new geocoding workflow, which leverages Object Detection techniques to directly extract the centroid of the building rooftops as geocoding output, has been proposed.[16]
Uses[edit]
Geocoded locations are useful in many GIS analysis, cartography, decision making workflow, transaction mash-up, or injected into larger business processes. On the web, geocoding is used in services like routing and local search. Geocoding, along with GPS provides location data for geotagging media, such as photographs or RSS items.
Privacy concerns[edit]
The proliferation and ease of access to geocoding (and reverse geocoding) services raises privacy concerns. For example, in mapping crime incidents, law enforcement agencies aim to balance the privacy rights of victims and offenders, with the public's right to know. Law enforcement agencies have experimented with alternative geocoding techniques that allow them to mask a portion of the locational detail (e.g., address specifics that would lead to identifying a victim or offender). As well, in providing online crime mapping to the public, they also place disclaimers regarding the locational accuracy of points on the map, acknowledging these location masking techniques, and impose terms of use for the information.