• The North American Address Locator and batch geocoding services (TA_Address_NA_10 and TA_BatchAddress_NA_10) were updated with the latest available reference data. This composite locator supports two new levels of geocoding:
  • Addresses in North America can now be geocoded to Street Names. A new locator was introduced in the composite for North American geocoding service which helps to geocode addresses with just street name without house numbers, for example, New York St, 92373.
  • Addresses in Canada are geocoded to RoofTop level where available. Until now the ArcGIS Online geocoding service for Canada only had support for geocoding up to Street level.

  Additionally, the locator has improved match rates due to some software fixes combined with the new reference data.

• The remainder of the online address locators, including European Address Locator and batch geocoding services (TA_Address_EU and TA_BatchAddress_EU), were updated with the latest available reference data.
• The World Places Locator (ESRI_Places_World) was updated with December 2011 GeoNames Data.
• European Routing and North American Routing were both updated with the latest available reference data.

There is a known limitation with this release:

• The address field for reverse geocode in the North America Address Locator (TA_Address_NA and TA_BatchAddress_NA) will not have house number in the response when located to RoofTop.

If you have feedback or comments, please post them to the ArcGIS Online forums.

This version of the Data Appliance includes a lot of new data, similar to what was launched online last week. New levels of detail were added at 1:1,000 and 1:2,000 scales in many metropolitan areas around the world for World Street Map, World Topogaphic Map, World Transportation, and World Boundaries and Places. We also added nationwide coverage at 1:5,000 in the same countries outside of the metropolitan areas.

For imagery, the update also includes the latest Aerials Express and NAIP imagery for the United States.

For more details on what’s new in the Data Appliance 5.0 for ArcGIS, visit the ArcGIS Content Resource Center.

• The North American Address Locator (TA_Address_NA_10) was updated with the latest available reference data. This composite locator supports two new levels of geocoding: 
  • Addresses in North America can now be geocoded to Street Names. A new locator has been introduced in the composite for North American geocoding service which helps to geocode addresses with just street name without house numbers, for example, New York St, 92373.
  • Addresses in Canada are geocoded to RoofTop level where available. Until now the ArcGIS Online geocoding service for Canada only had support for geocoding up to Street level.

  Additionally, the locator has improved match rates due to some software fixes combined with the new reference data.

• The remainder of the online address locators, including European Address Locator (TA_Address_EU), were updated with
  the latest available reference data.
• The World Places Locator (ESRI_Places_World) was updated with May 2011
  GeoNames Data.
• European Routing and North American Routing were both updated with the latest available reference data.

There are a couple of known limitations with this release:

• When using the World Places Locator, some place names will not geocode correctly when using their state/province/country abbreviation, for example, Vancouver, BC.
• The address field for reverse geocode in the North America locator (TA_Address_NA_10 and TA_Address_NA) will not have house number in the response when located to RoofTop.

If you have feedback or comments, please post them to the ArcGIS Online forums.

For information on changes to the map services, see ArcGIS Online map services updated to provide more coverage worldwide.

Creating locators with ArcGIS 10 out of the box address locator styles requires the specific address attributes in one feature class. As the TIGER 2010 dataset consists of multiple feature classes and tables, creating locators with ArcGIS 10 out of the box locator styles requires the tables to be joined properly in advance and are exported to one feature class.

Alternatively, a custom locator style, TIGER – Edges-Dual Ranges, allows you to create locators with the feature classes/tables from the TIGER 2010 data without preprocessing the tables. The locator style requires the following feature classes and tables in the TIGER 2010 dataset: 

• tl_2010_xx_edges


• tl_2010_xx_faces


•  tl_2010_xx_features


•  tl_2010_xx_place10 


•  tl_2010_xx_state10

You can download the locator style and sample data/tool from the Geocoding resource center:

http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geocoding/details?entryID=A4F8045C-1422-2418-A0E9-479A9B776A18

Due to multiple table joins and selection queries, creating a locator using this locator style may take some time especially if the feature classes contain many features.  Preprocessing the tables and exporting the address attributes to one feature class is an option as creating locators with one feature class using the out of the box locator style is generally faster.

I have posted the presentations of the two geocoding
technical workshops on the Gallery of the Geocoding Resource Center. The
Geocoding – Advanced Techniques workshop also includes the demo GP models and
sample workspaces.

Here is the link to the download:

http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geocoding/details?entryID=44C6C5DF-1422-2418-A09B-6BECD9EEFF52

Agatha
Esri

Esri UC 2011 is around the corner. If you have made plans to come next week, we (the geocoding development team) would love to meet you. We are excited to be there to learn from you and show you our work on geocoding development.

Please come to visit us in the Spatial Analysis Island in Exhibit Hall C or attend some of our presentations. 

Technical workshops
Geocoding – An Introduction
Tuesday 8:30 AM, (Room 14B) – Offering I
Wednesday 1:30 PM, (Room 14B) – Offering II

Geocoding – Advanced Techniques
Tuesday 10:15 AM, (Room 14B) – Offering I
Wednesday 3:15 PM, (Room 14B) – Offering II

ESRI Showcase Software Island Demo Theater
Road Ahead – Geocoding  (Tuesday 5:00 PM)
From a table of addresses to locations on the map (Thursday 11:30 AM)

If you have a minute, add a comment to this blog post and let us know what you would like to know more about geocoding.

Looking forward to seeing you in San Diego next week. 

Agatha
Esri

With this release, cloud computing—both public and private clouds—will play an increasingly critical role in how users get their work accomplished. ArcGIS software will take advantage of the powerful, scalable, and ubiquitous nature of cloud infrastructures to store and distribute geospatial content. Users will be able to easily package their maps and layers and make that content available to staff, stakeholders, partners, or the public via online groups while maintaining complete control and ownership of their content. Additionally, users will be able to quickly deploy GIS servers in the cloud when they need them as fully functional production systems for publishing services and supporting desktop, mobile, and web applications.

At 10.1, ArcGIS for Server will run natively on 64-bit operating systems. Users will notice significant performance improvements for activities such as web editing, map caching, spatial analysis, finding addresses, and using imagery.

Imagery will also be better integrated into the core of ArcGIS. ArcGIS will not only make it simpler to use imagery but also support more imagery sources, as well as lidar and radar.

An exciting addition to ArcGIS at 10.1 will be ArcGIS Runtime, which lets developers create and deploy focused, stand-alone GIS applications for desktop users, who have been asking for a small, lightweight deployment that, in terms of capabilities, fits between ArcGIS Engine and the ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs. The new runtime is designed for both desktop and cloud development. It has a fast display and does not require installation; it can be run directly from a CD. The learning curve for the new runtime is expected to be very gentle for developers familiar with the web APIs.

In addition to these enhancements to ArcGIS, Esri has also concentrated on providing core GIS tools to help users create better maps. These tools range from dynamic legends to contextual generalization, the ability to track edits, parcel editing tools, analysis tools, and a whole lot more.

Finally, as Esri moves toward ArcGIS 10.1, Python is becoming foundational to ArcGIS. It essentially bridges the gap between GIS analysts and programmers.

We will be sharing more and more about what’s coming in ArcGIS 10.1 over the next few months so check back often.

Geocoding service changes include the following:

• The North American Address Locator (TA_Address_NA), North American Batch Address Locator (TA_BatchAddress_NA) and United States Street Locator (TA_Streets_US) were updated with Tele Atlas Q2 2010 reference data:
  • A new “SIDE” field is an additional output field that was added to
    Address_Points locator in order to return the correct side value. All additional
    output fields are appended after the actual output fields.
  • Output location can be requested in a different Coordinate
    System.
• New North American Address Locator (TA_Address_NA_10), North American Batch Address Locator (TA_BatchAddress_NA_10), and United States Street Locator (TA_Streets_US_10) ArcGIS 10
  style geocoding services based on TomTom Q2 2010 reference data are now
  available for use:
  • These new locators support a new single line address field.
  • Match score (Score) is now a percentage instead of an absolute number;
    hence, the type has changed from SHORT to DOUBLE.
  • Find Address Candidates supports a new outSR parameter that enables clients
    to specify an output spatial reference. Single line geocoding is now
    supported.
  • The End offset distance can now be set in other Esri Units such as feet,
    meters, and so on. In the ArcGIS 9.3 style locators it was only percentage.
  • Spelling sensitivity is improved. A character transition table is used for
    certain character matching instead of the sound like method in the ArcGIS 9.3
    style locators.
  • Reverse Geocode supports a new outSR parameter that enables clients to
    specify an output spatial reference.
• The European Address Locator (TA_Address_EU) and European Batch Address Locator (TA_BatchAddress_EU) were updated with Tele
  Atlas Q1 2010 reference data:
  • There is a modification as to how the locator name (Loc_name) is returned in
    the response. The new locator names are now prefixed with EU_Street_Addr or
    EU_Street_Name or EU_City or EU_PostCity or EU_Postcode followed by the actual
    locator that did the geocoding task (e.g., EU_Street_Addr.ESP_Streets).
  • Output location can be requested in a different Coordinate System.
• The World Places Locator (ESRI_Places_World) was updated to an
  ArcGIS 10 style geocoding service using September 2010 GeoNames Data:
  • Loc_name was updated to support a single locator: WorldPlaces.
  • This locator takes advantage of the better scoring technique provided by the
    ArcGIS 10 Geocoding Engine.
  • Output location can be requested in a different Coordinate System.

Routing service changes include the following:

• The solve route operation now supports the following new
  parameters: attributeParameterValues, polylineBarriers, and polygonBarriers.
• North American Routing was updated with Tele Atlas Q2 2010
  reference data.
• European Routing was updated with Tele Atlas Q1 2010 reference
  data.
• There are now 12 supported languages. The two new languages supported in
  this release are Chinese and Japanese. See the Technical Notes in the item
  details for European Routing and North American Routing for a complete list of supported
  languages.

For Frequently Asked Questions, see the previous announcement about the ArcGIS Online Task server and service updates.

Before exploring multiprocessing and GPU programming, don’t forget Python’s subprocess module.  This supports multiple independent processes but does not require thread safety – just a simple approach of a master script and a worker script.

Batch geocoding is an “embarrassingly parallel” problem, the input may be broken up into as many jobs as desired.  The sample script tool linked here lets you leverage all available CPU cores on your local machine, or all available Server instances on a remote server.  Splitting the work into equal sized chunks is a trivial exercise using queries for ranges of ObjectID (which is a very fast query to execute), so workers get started immediately.  The biggest overhead delay is recombining the various outputs, but on a well specified machine you should see worthwhile gains nevertheless.

Download the tool even if you’re not a geocoder, you may be able to leverage the logic to parallelize other geoprocessing jobs – and if you do, don’t forget to share your own tools!

Content for this post provided by Bruce H.

• Performance improvements for geocoding for matching tables of addresses and single address match.
• Overall improvements for geocoding. For example, issues for repairing locators are resolved.
• Locator Style improvements for 10.0 SP2, including correction in ZIP+4 Range locator style to support leading zero of the 4 digit code and improved handling of spelling issues when geocoding.

NOTE:  10.0 SP2 does not contain one of the memory leak fixes that is in ArcGIS 10 SP1 (Desktop, Engine, Server) Geocoding – Memory Leak for Composite Locators Patch. 

Please install ArcGIS 10 SP2 (Desktop, Engine, Server) Geocoding – Memory Leak for Composite Locators Patch on top of 10.0 SP2 in order for the final leak fix to be included.