Geocoding with MapPoint
Microsoft's MapPoint product is a high quality "atlas" mapping program that is
popular for many consumer applications. MapPoint also has the ability to
geocode street addresses within the region covered by the edition of MapPoint in
use. The North American edition of MapPoint can geocode street addresses in
Canada and the United States. The European edition of MapPoint can geocode street
addresses in eleven European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and United
Kingdom).
If Microsoft MapPoint 2002 or 2004 is installed on the same computer as
Manifold System, Manifold can use the MapPoint geocoding engine to provide geocoding
services to Manifold. Most geocoding functions, including geocoding extensions
in SQL, programming and use within IMS will work (IMS usage will require
correct configuration of user permissions - see below). However, note that functions
with MapPoint will be limited to those that use a full street address.
Although the Manifold geocoding data set enables geocoding down to the
centroid of the lowest resolvable entity (state, city, zip code) if a full street
address is not available, MapPoint cannot geocode to, say, the centroid of a postal
code if no more detailed street address is known. In general, MapPoint will
not return the centroid of a postal code. It will return the location of a valid
street address, and will "jump" to the location of a postal code in the
MapPoint user interface when used interactively. However, MapPoint will not return
the location of a postal code when it is called programmatically as is the case
with use as an auxiliary geocoder.
Because MapPoint is much less expensive than buying proprietary geocoding data
sets for Canada or European countries, using MapPoint as an auxiliary
geocoding engine is the least expensive way of getting Canadian or European geocoding
in a true GIS like Manifold. Since both the North American and European
editions of MapPoint may be simultaneously installed, Manifold users who have both
editions installed can simultaneously geocode street addresses in the US, Canada
and in the eleven European countries supported by MapPoint.
MapPoint may also be used as the default geocoder for US street addresses and
MapPoint may be used as the geocoder for Manifold even if the Manifold
geocoding database is not installed. Although MapPoint does cost more than twice as
much as the Manifold geocoding database product, it provides slightly more
extensive street address matching capability for US street addresses.
Using MapPoint as a geocoder is easy: simply install the edition(s) of
MapPoint desired, and then in the Tools - Options - Geocoding dialog check the Use MapPoint as […] geocoder option and choose whether MapPoint is to be used as the default geocoder or as the fallback geocoder.
When using MapPoint for geocoding, country names are specified as follows:
- If a single field is used for addresses the various parts of the address
(street address, city, etc.) must be separated by commas. The MapPoint address
parser in general cannot extract address parts (street address, city, state,
zip/postal code or country) from a single field unless they are separated by commas.
- If separate fields are used, then the State field must contain the state/province name and the Country field should contain the country name.
To geocode Canadian or European Addresses using MapPoint
Install the required edition(s) of MapPoint.
Launch Manifold and in Tools - Options - Miscellaneous check the Use MapPoint as… option. Choose default as the setting if MapPoint is to be the primary (or only) geocoder and fallback if the Manifold geocoder is to be used as the primary geocoder.
If geocoding addresses outside of the United States, include the country name
in the State field, separated from the province name (if any) by a comma.
Follow the instructions in the Street Address Geocoding topic. All Manifold geocoding functions will operate correctly using
MapPoint as the geocoder.
Examples
Suppose we would like to geocode the street addresses of some hotels in
Vancouver, Canada.
If our table contains the addresses in a single field, we must take care to
separate the different parts of the address using commas. Before a single-field
address can be used with MapPoint it must be split into multiple fields using Standardize.
If our table contains the addresses as multiple fields, we must make sure that
the field to be used as the State field includes the province and country separated with a comma. Standardize will automatically split single field addresses into multiple field addresses
that correctly have the province (if used) and country in the State field.
Running the geocoder will add Latitude and Longitude columns and values to the table.
Note that MapPoint can almost always find a street address even if the
province is not included in the State field. However, the country name must always be included in the State field so MapPoint knows which country to use.
Postal or ZIP Codes
The Standardize command will extract address, city, state and postal/ZIP fields from an
address given in a single field. It also works when MapPoint is used as a geocoder
except that MapPoint will not extract and return the postal or ZIP code from a
single address field. Therefore, when converting a single-field address to a
multiple field address using Standardize the postal/Zip code field will be blank.
For this reason, if postal codes are required to geocode street addresses in a
given area and MapPoint is the geocoder, use addresses in multiple field form.
Note that usually having a street address and a city is usually enough for
geocoding purposes since in most cases the postal/ZIP code is redundant if the
city name and name of the street are known. In cases where the postal/ZIP code
is required and addresses are in single field form, it us usually easy to use
the transform toolbar token operators to manually extract postal/Zip codes from a single
field address into a separate Zip field.
MapPoint Versions
The Microsoft product meant by "MapPoint" in this topic is the packaged
consumer application that installs on the local computer, and not the .NET service
offered by Microsoft. The MapPoint geocoding facilities used by Manifold System
require MapPoint 2002 or 2004 and will not work with earlier MapPoint editions.
The European edition of MapPoint 2004 has enhanced support for additional
European countries. Following is a list of countries covered by European editions
of MapPoint 2004 and MapPoint 2002 for street address geocoding:
- Austria (partially covered by both 2004 and 2002).
- Belgium (fully covered by 2004, partially covered by 2002).
- Denmark (fully covered by 2004, partially covered by 2002).
- Finland (partially covered by 2004, not covered by 2002).
- France (partially covered by both 2004 and 2002).
- Germany (fully covered by both 2004 and 2002).
- Italy (partially covered by both 2004 and 2002).
- Luxembourg (fully covered by 2004, partially covered by 2002).
- Netherlands (fully covered by 2004, partially covered by 2002).
- Norway (partially covered by 2004, not covered by 2002).
- Portugal (partially covered by 2004, not covered by 2002).
- Spain (partially covered by both 2004 and 2002).
- Sweden (fully covered by 2004, not covered by 2002).
- Switzerland (fully covered by 2004, partially covered by 2002).
- United Kingdom (partially covered by both 2004 and 2002).
MapPoint 2004 also covers Czech Republic and Ireland, but only in that those
countries can be used during routing. They cannot be used for street address
geocoding.
MapPoint and IMS
MapPoint geocoding will normally not work from IMS unless we map anonymous
Internet connections to a user account that has more enhanced permissions than the
default Internet access IUSR_xxx account.
To enhance permissions for the Internet access account:
-
Create a regular user account with default permissions that is a member of
the Users group.
Open Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Internet Information Services (or the equivalent dialog in your version of Windows).
Right click the folder that contains the published website, select Properties, switch to Directory Security and click Edit under Anonymous access and authentication control.
Set the user account used for anonymous access to the account created in step 1 above.
See Also
About Geocoding
Geocoding
Street Address Geocoding
Geocoding Data Extensions
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