Pluscodes? - Githubissues

RiverMersey commented 4 years ago

Can we include an option to either record and/or display pluscodes?

Having a handheld live pluscode calculator would be fantastic!

Pluscode overview is available at: https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc

Pluscode specification is available at:https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/specification.md

and I myself wrote a VBA script for MSAccess at: https://github.com/google/open-location-code/issues/364

tomlayg6 commented 4 years ago

What 3 words is another possible option:

https://what3words.com/

This is the navigation method used by several emergency services around the world.

RiverMersey commented 4 years ago

Many thanks for your suggestion. Actually, there are any number of other possible choices to pluscodes, however, pluscodes seems to presently be the most robust, versatile and compact location notation. W3W has been considered. However, it has personally been rejected for a number of reasons...

Compared to other systems, W3W is:

Propriety and closed
English-centric
Doesn’t actually always use only 3 words - https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handlebar (could that be W5W)? (We will return to this example...)
Variable character-length field for any given location
Prone to type/spell/radio mistakes

Also, W3W:

Can’t be calculated manually and/or offline
API causes programming errors on results it returns – double “/” when single “/” expected
Words don’t give any sense of other W3W locations nearby – pluscodes are incremental
Isn’t directly supported in a Google location search
Etc.

Specifically, pluscodes are open source & algorithmically-based. Any given pluscode is in a standard format, which in turn gives a sense of accuracy and error-checking. Any location can be independently calculated by multiple operators – even solely using only astronomical observations and basic mechanical tools (no computers).

   Embedding W3W into the GPSLogger would involve the device having either direct or local access to the entire W3W word database and the algorithm of how the words are arranged. (W3W as of this date refused to publish that information.) W3W also charges a fee for look-ups – emergency services, etc. would be paying.

   As W3W uses English words, it might be implied that it is acceptable to translate these words into other languages then back to English again. What we find then is:

English German Retranslated Mis-translated W3W admits joystick handlebar gibt Joystick Lenker zu

admits joystick handlebars https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handlebars

English Chinese (Simplified) Retranslated Mis-translated W3W admits joystick handlebar 承认操纵杆把手 Acknowledge joystick handle https://what3words.com/acknowledge.joystick.handle

From this, we find that W3W does indeed recognise the mis-translations as locations however these are entirely incorrect from the original “admits.joystick.handlebar”.

As the W3W of “admits.joystick.handle”, “admits.joystick.handles”, “admits.joystick.handlebar” and “admits.joystick.handlebars” are so similar, it might be assumed that the locations are reasonably close together. However, this is literally far from true and this is what we find:

https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handlebar https://plus.codes/9C4VR757+GHF 52°48'31.9"N 2°44'09.7"W 52.808848, -2.736014 25 metres south of Yoevil train station, UK

https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handle https://plus.codes/9FRM6W5Q+62F 66°12'30.2"N 13°56'15.2"E 66.208387, 13.937544 3.86km due south of Dalselv, Norway

https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handles https://plus.codes/C62PVQHP+WPG 70°52'47.2"N 85°12'47.5"W 70.879790, -85.213193 85km due East of Lavoie Islands onto Nunavut Island

https://what3words.com/admits.joystick.handlebars https://plus.codes/4RW4JXHP+PWG 31°22'14.5"S 142°59'14.3"E -31.370701, 142.987295 Wilcannia NSW 2836, Australia

Both of the numeric of co-ordinate systems and the pluscodes indicate that these locations are quite some distance apart. Pluscode can actually be used to calculate the distances. Our original W3W location of “admits.joystick.handlebar” through translation/typing/spelling/radio errors, could be mis-relayed to at least 5 different variant locations anywhere around the globe.

By comparison, pluscodes uses alpha-numeric representation – so isn’t prone to language mis-translations.

Spelling and typing errors are minimised because the character-set used was purposefully chosen so as to minimise misidentifying say, a “5” with an “S”, “0” with an “O” or an “1” with a “I”.

[Pluscodes will only ever use any of these 20 characters: “23456789CFGHJMPQRVWX” (“+” always takes the ninth place in the code, similar to a decimal point)]

Pluscodes can be read-out on radio using NATO Phonetic Alphabet or similar.

Both pluscode and W3W present as a location as being within a “bounding-box” – both DEFINATELY contain the location referred to, other co-ordinate systems centre on the location referred to.

Pluscode has an advantage over the more traditional lat/long notation in that pluscodes can be specified to have a certain field-size equalling a certain amount of resolution – traditional lat/long can sometimes need more than twice as many characters to accurately notate the same level of precision.

Confidence of the accuracy of the code increases with the length of the code – anywhere beginning “9C000000+00000” is an area covering most of UK, replace the zeros with other legitimate characters increasingly refines the location within UK – to less than a millimetre, if necessary.

W3W simply doesn’t offer this level of refinement, scrutiny or reliability.

Yes, many emergency services around the world do use W3W – because the public might offer the location in that form - but in parallel they continue to use postcodes, zip codes, the various GPS co-ordinate systems, and so on.

Global emergency services will not replace their location notation systems with W3W, rather, any W3W reference will be verified and transcoded to the systems they actively use, fundamentally based on GPS.

From: tomlayg6 Sent: 07 November 2020 14:55 To: BasicAirData/GPSLogger Cc: River Mersey; Author Subject: Re: [BasicAirData/GPSLogger] Pluscodes? (#83)

What 3 words is another possible option: https://what3words.com/ This is the navigation method used by several emergency services around the world. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

tomlayg6 commented 4 years ago

Some of the above comments are valid, however there are several inaccuracies.

W3W is available in multiple languages. The vocabulary is different for each language, so literal translation does not work.
similar words deliberately resolve to very different locations. This is intentional so it is obvious when the code is wrong.
There is no charge for converting coordinates to W3W
W3W do not charge for use by emergency services etc.

I am not suggesting that W3W be used instead of Pluscode, merely that W3W should also be offered.

BasicAirData / GPSLogger

Pluscodes? #83