+gbod Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Hello! I was wondering if anybody knows where the data comes from when you "also download nearest placenames?" I would like to get info like this for places that aren't necessarily near a cache. Is there a public database than one can access? Link to comment
robertlipe Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Without inside information, I've always assumed it comes from the Tiger data sets. Search for "Places" in http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/places2k.html Link to comment
+rickrich Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 For $25 you can get a database of 1.5 million USA placenames from www.mapopolis.com. The database includes the name, address, phone number, and waypoint. Here are some of the categories in the database: Amusement Banks Bars Drug Stores Food Stores Gas Stations General Merchandise Government Hotels Libraries Movies Museums Post Office Public Safety Religious Restaurants, African Restaurants, Asian Restaurants, Bars Restaurants, Coffee Restaurants, Deli Restaurants, European Restaurants, Family Restaurants, Fast Food Restaurants, Franchise Restaurants, Ice Cream Restaurants, Miscellaneous Restaurants, North American Restaurants, Seafood Restaurants, South American Restaurants, Steak Transportation I have tools, pgpdb2txt.c and a companion wrapper script "geo-pg", that will convert these database files into text or into any of the formats that GpsBabel supports. These tools should run on any Linux/Unix system. I have no connection to Mapopolis other than as a customer. Google on geo-pg or pgpdb2txt to find these. -Rick Link to comment
+Marky Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 What I would like is a website that I could enter my current coords, and then what I wanted to find, such as a Starbucks, and have it give me a list of waypoints. I could have used this yesterday while I was in Sacramento... --Marky "All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer with a backlit GPSr" Link to comment
+rickrich Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 That data is available in the database... $ geo-pg -n Starbucks -otxt sacramentocaggm.pdb Restaurants, Coffee|Starbucks Coffee Co|421 Pioneer Ave|Woodland CA 95776|5304060898|38.36783|-121.80301| Restaurants, Coffee|Starbucks Coffee|4424 Freeport Blvd|Sacramento CA 95822|9164512747|38.29759|-121.67666| [sNIP] However, I'm quite sure that republishing it on a website would require more than the $25 fee to license the data for personal use. -Rick Link to comment
+gbod Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 I checked the census site and explored the TIGER files. I don't think it's the data set being used. I was unable to find campsites, radio towers, valleys, etc. that ARE downloaded with the nearest placenames. The census data seems to be more concerened with political and population boundaries, etc. than radio towers or geographic features. Pehaps I'm not looking deep enough though! Link to comment
robertlipe Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 That's what I get for relying on memory. I'm sure it's one of the government data sets, but I probably guessed wrong and referenced the wrong bookmark. Try this one on for size: http://geonames.usgs.gov/geonames/stategaz/index.html Link to comment
+gbod Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 quote:Originally posted by robertlipe:That's what I get for relying on memory. I'm sure it's one of the government data sets, but I probably guessed wrong and referenced the wrong bookmark. Try this one on for size: http://geonames.usgs.gov/geonames/stategaz/index.html Yes- this certainly could be it! Interestingly, it links to the census TIGER mapping feature if you want to map out your query result. Link to comment
Swagger Posted August 12, 2003 Share Posted August 12, 2003 I'd be willing to bet that it's pulled out of the same place that they get the maps - the MapPoint server. In MapPoint 2002, you have an option under the Tools menu called "Find Nearby Places." quote:Originally posted by Marky:What I would like is a website that I could enter my current coords, and then what I wanted to find, such as a Starbucks, and have it give me a list of waypoints. I could have used this yesterday while I was in Sacramento... My Legend does this - that data is included in the MapSource dataset. It's not always current, though. For instance, I was looking for a Starbucks (they should start paying Jeremy some advertising $$$ for all the mentions they get in the forums ) and they only had a few listed, none of which were where I was. We ended up finding one - if you drive for a mile on any major street, you'll come across one... -- Pehmva! Random quote: Link to comment
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