Georeference members info

[PedroBastos]

Hello,

As a first counselor on ward bishopric I exported members' info to a plain text file and imported in a database (FOR TESTS ONLY).

After that I started to georeferencing those addresses using Google Maps. I have a problem to solve here in my ward. We have a huge ward area (must Brazilians wards are very big) and need to have a better glimpse where members and home teachers are (for optimizing purposes).

Are there others demanding for that solution as well? I mean does any other ward need some tool like that?

I know in MLS there is some geographic info to fill out but such tool will help to fill out that info.

This is a very starting project and there is no UI (user interface) in developing.

Does someone want to help?

Best wishes,


Pedro Bastos

[wwoodford]

Brother Bastos,

There is a website that may be of help. I use it for the purpose that you have descibed, but on a stake level

http://batchgeocode.com

It uses a tab delimited file, processes the addresses and provides a lattitude/longitude for each address. It will also export a Google Earth .kml with the locations mapped and information from the original file.

William Woodford
Stake Clerk
Fayetteville North Carolina West Stake

[boomerbubba]

Originally Posted by wwoodford

Brother Bastos,

There is a website that may be of help. I use it for the purpose that you have descibed, but on a stake level

http://batchgeocode.com

I'm not sure how good the coverage of that site is for Brazil. Even U.S. users of this site should beware that it ignores errors detected internally, and thus maps some addresses at incorrect locations without warning.

The fields in MLS called "Geo Codes" are just free-form fields that users must populate manually. These codes are supposed to correspond to areas, not latitude-longitude points.

The best hope is probably for the expected release of new geocoding and mapping tools that the church is developing.

[PedroBastos]

Originally Posted by boomerbubba

I'm not sure how good the coverage of that site is for Brazil. Even U.S. users of this site should beware that it ignores errors detected internally, and thus maps some addresses at incorrect locations without warning.

The fields in MLS called "Geo Codes" are just free-form fields that users must populate manually. These codes are supposed to correspond to areas, not latitude-longitude points.

The best hope is probably for the expected release of new geocoding and mapping tools that the church is developing.

I have some experience using georeferrencing by Google Maps, and those mistakes are made by Google (or Yahoo) Maps. In fact in some situations the lat-long information are not accurate and we must provide some kind of human supervision.

Really?!?! Is the Church developing a tool for geocoding? Is there any possibility to test it or help on developing?

Anyone can provide us more info about it?

Thanks for now,


Pedro

[boomerbubba]

Originally Posted by PedroBastos

Really?!?! Is the Church developing a tool for geocoding? Is there any possibility to test it or help on developing?

Anyone can provide us more info about it?

We haven't been told much except that a general member-mapping application has been in development for more than a year now. We don't know anything about release dates. Presumably the geocoding part of the application will include work by local clerks to resolve errors, but there has been no announcement about what form the tool will take.

[ksmith]

I have been pondering member-mapping for awhile now also - sounds exciting. In the meantime I used brute force to make it work in Google earth. (optimize member visits - plan driving routes)