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Sorry for the simple question here, but what would a person use this for? What is the use case? Thank you

by ionwake 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago
To geocode means to transform an address into a location. So say you have a textual address and want to know where it is located. You feed it into a geocoder and it returns a location. The same database can often be used to go the other direction, taking a location and returning the name and other details about a place.
Piskvorrr 10y ago
Here's an actual workflow I have worked on: "I'm at 50.00000N, 15.00000E (a GPS coordinate). How do I get to the Foo Bar in Baz City (a text input or selection), by public transit (a choice of transport modes)?" - Reverse geocode "bus stop or train stop or tram stop near 50 N, 15 E" - "there's a bus stop named Xyzzy at 50.0012 N, 15.0003 E" - Geocode "Foo Bar, Baz City" - "51 N, 14 E" - Reverse geocode "bus stop or train stop or tram stop near 51 N, 14 E" - "there's a train station named Baz City Central at 50.99998 N, 14.001 E" (plus routing and scheduling on top of that - but that is beyond the scope of geocoding, which is one part of the toolchain) Other example: "I'm at 50 N, 15 E; get me a list of restaurants around here" (optionally: non-smoking, currently open - not sure if Nominatim directly supports filtering like that)
- ionwake 10y ago
  Thank you for the detailed reply. I understand it would be normally used for an app which provides travel planning abilities now.
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    That is one of the possible uses, indeed; I'm pretty sure someone else has used it in a more creative way :)
jackmaney 10y ago
I've worked on a few projects where I've needed to know pairwise distances among a set of addresses.
mosburger 10y ago
Here's a use case I've encountered: Find me all the auto repair shops within X miles of this street address, where the database of repair shops is populated from street addresses as well.

Sorry for the simple question here, but what would a person use this for? What is the use case? Thank you

by ionwake 10y ago

Sorry for the simple question here, but what would a person use this for? What is the use case? Thank you

To geocode means to transform an address into a location. So say you have a textual address and want to know where it is located. You feed it into a geocoder and it returns a location. The same database can often be used to go the other direction, taking a location and returning the name and other details about a place.

Piskvorrr 10y ago

Here's an actual workflow I have worked on: "I'm at 50.00000N, 15.00000E (a GPS coordinate). How do I get to the Foo Bar in Baz City (a text input or selection), by public transit (a choice of transport modes)?" - Reverse geocode "bus stop or train stop or tram stop near 50 N, 15 E" - "there's a bus stop named Xyzzy at 50.0012 N, 15.0003 E" - Geocode "Foo Bar, Baz City" - "51 N, 14 E" - Reverse geocode "bus stop or train stop or tram stop near 51 N, 14 E" - "there's a train station named Baz City Central at 50.99998 N, 14.001 E" (plus routing and scheduling on top of that - but that is beyond the scope of geocoding, which is one part of the toolchain) Other example: "I'm at 50 N, 15 E; get me a list of restaurants around here" (optionally: non-smoking, currently open - not sure if Nominatim directly supports filtering like that)

ionwake 10y ago
Thank you for the detailed reply. I understand it would be normally used for an app which provides travel planning abilities now.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  That is one of the possible uses, indeed; I'm pretty sure someone else has used it in a more creative way :)

jackmaney 10y ago

I've worked on a few projects where I've needed to know pairwise distances among a set of addresses.

mosburger 10y ago

Here's a use case I've encountered: Find me all the auto repair shops within X miles of this street address, where the database of repair shops is populated from street addresses as well.