1. Geocoding Addresses
Ming-Chun Lee

2. What is geocoding?
Geocoding is defined as the process of creating geometric representations for descriptions of locations
In the case of address geocoding, one generally uses points to represent desired addresses

3. Geocoding
Geocoding is the process of assigning a location to addresses in a table by comparing the addresses to those in a reference layer.

4. Benefits of geocoding Map customer locations Internet mapping
Planning deliveries
Giving directions
Planning future expansion
Internet mapping
Driving directions
Real estate
Government applications
Crime analysis
Voter validation

5. What do you geocode?
Tabular data with zip codes, addresses or latitude and longitude…
Text
Databases

6. Requirements for geocoding
ArcCatalog – create address locators,
ArcMap – geocoding, display geocoded results
Address locator – rules for assigning a location to an address
Reference layer – address locator assigns address based on information in this layer

7. Address locator
Specifies the method to interpret a particular type of address input, relate it with the reference data and deliver a geocoded output.
The rule base is a collection of files used to translate the address data into the desired output

8. The process of geocoding:
Standardizing the address
Searching for potential candidates
Scoring each candidate
Matching address to best candidate

9. Standardizing the address
During this step the address is broken into components
For example: street number, street name, street type and street direction

10. Searching for potential candidates
The geocoding service searches the reference layer to find a feature with address components similar to your standardized address
Uses spelling sensitivity settings

11. Scoring each candidate
The geocoding service assigns a value from 0 to 100 for each potential candidate
Each address component is considered in the scoring
The score will be lower if components are misspelled, incorrect or missing

12. Matching address to best candidate
The geocoding service looks for the potential candidate with the highest score
If the score exceeds the minimum match score setting, then the service matches the address with that candidate

13. Rematching
If unhappy with initial results, one can modify settings and geocode the table of addresses again
Also, you can interactively rematch addresses