[Xastir] New geocode database files available at aprs.tamu.edu

[Richard Polivka]

Looks like I am going to commit another act of wanton server abuse this weekend...

Grabbed all the 2006_SE map files over the fourth. Now to add these to the collection.

73 from 807,

Richard, N6NKO

Tom Russo <russo at bogodyn.org> wrote: Several weeks ago I conversed with Jason Winningham about a little chore
related to the TIGER/Line 2006 Second Edition files that he had so 
painstakingly downloaded and processed into shapefiles with the aid
of a large cluster of linux machines.  This chore was the generation of the 
"geocode" files that make Xastir's "Find Address" feature work.

Jason has used the same data files and linux cluster to regenerate the entire 
set of geocode files for all the TIGER/Line data.  He made one file for each 
state (or territory) and a monolithic file of the entire collection.  Having
the individual states helps to limit the amount of downloading you need
to do if you only need address geocoding for a small area.  Having the
smaller files speeds searches for addresses, too.  But the full US file
is still available.

The files tend to be big --- the US.geocode file is 496MB, gzipped, and
some individual states are as big as 30MB (such as Texas).  If you only need
one (or a few) state's worth of address geocoding, Jason has provided a fairly 
easy way to get hold of them.  Or if you have a fat pipe and a big hard drive, 
you can download the entire country in one file.

All of the geocode files are up on 
  ftp://aprs.tamu.edu/pub/geocode/States
and are available now thanks to Gerry Creager.

To use these, gunzip the files into /usr/local/share/xastir/GNIS, and then
you can use the "Find Address" feature in the Map menu.  Just point the 
dialog box at the correct geocode file, and search away.

The search feature is rather picky, so you might find that you have to get
the address in a very particular form before it works.  In Albuquerque, 
for example, all streets have a quadrant suffix (NE, NW, SE, SW) even when
a street only exists in one quadrant, and addresses won't be found if the
quadrant isn't given.  

The TIGER 2006 Second Edition data appears to be significantly improved over
the older data, so at least in my neck of the woods these new geocode files
produce much better matches of addresses to locations.  I highly recommend
them.

Thank you again to Jason Winningham for running through all the TIGER data
to produce these files, and to Gerry Creager for hosting them.  And of course
to Daniel Egnor for the GPL'd address geocoding tool that we use in 
Xastir.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick
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