> Having done a mass of geocoding back in the day as a GIS analyst, and years > later selling Geocoding software, I learned one key thing in respect to > geocoding. You can only geocode if you have the information to geocode > against. i.e. Good Street and Address Data. No matter how strong your > geocoding algorithm (Soundex, matching intelligence, speed, etc.), if the > information is not there, your data will NOT geocode. I'm speaking from an > address level geocoding perspective.
In the case of MapPoint, the engine *does* matter, out of the box for geocoding it is an especially poor comparison to a traditional geocoding solution like Map- Marker as there is no fall-back mechanism, this is in particular what I was thinking about when I mentioned earlier that there's an opportunity to improve MapPoint as a geocoder through it's extensibility.. would require some clever VBA coding. It might be considered a poor man's geocoder (like DeLorme StreetAtlas) if you can put up with time and effort involved and out-dated data... Ultimately though I agree with you.. I believe most if not all of the data vendors offer geocoding services by record, I've used GDT and Teleatlas NA as I mentioned earlier and merged them with great success on a Puerto Rico job, GDT's level of service was especially good... for critical jobs go right to the sources and use more than 1 :-) I'm not a user and I don't know which MapMarker partners with (GDT?), but I'm sure that's probably a fine solution and serves a certain price- point for the volume as well.. Eric --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
