GeoCommons Geocoder, Use It!

In July at State of the Map Andrew Turner announced the release of our open source geocoder gem. Since then it has been tried, bugs have been found and we’ve continued to improve it.

Following that announcement we’ve integrated our geocoder into GeoCommons.  When you upload a CSV file and define columns that contain address, city, state or postal codes within the United States latitude and longitude is appended to your data.  The process that appends that information is the same geocoder you can download from the Geocommons Github Repository.  We’ve even deployed it with a modified database on a Mac Mini to Afganistan.  There files can be uploaded with Afghan village names and location is appended to them. Some of you have also started utilizing it for your own projects.

Without you we would not have added

1. Support for Ruby 1.9
2. Geocoding of P.O. Boxes to ZIP Centroid

We also wouldn’t have necessarily found some bugs as well.

Up until this point I’ve been helping people individually through all means of communication; Twitter, Instant Messenger, Email and Github. Let’s centralize that communication starting today in a Google Group.  That way everyone’s questions/solutions are public and we can all help each other.

So to summarize: use it, fork it and if you need help ask.

Have you written something using the Geocommons Geocoder?  We’d love to hear about.