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ludstuen90 / property_project_ohio

This repository will house our property records application. More to come!
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Build lat-long converter #45

Closed ludstuen90 closed 6 years ago

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

Because addresses can be stored in a to of different formats, we'll store both addresses and lat/long coordinates.

Google offers a lat/long conversion API. https://support.google.com/maps/answer/18539?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

We'll need to develop a tool to take our stored addresses, and store them in lat-long format.

Related to #33

Friendly reminder: Be sure to add unit tests!

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

It turns out converting all of our addresses to lat-long coordinates with Google's geocoding (convert address > lat-long) feature would be extremely expensive. https://mapsplatformtransition.withgoogle.com/calculator?__utma=236542612.350585252.1542372437.1542465412.1542465412.1&__utmb=236542612.0.10.1542465412&__utmc=236542612&__utmx=-&__utmz=236542612.1542465412.1.1.utmcsr%3D(direct)%7Cutmccn%3D(direct)%7Cutmcmd%3D(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=155444216&_ga=2.106684481.-350585252.1542372437

Starts charging at 100 calls.

I found 68,851 records in Warren County alone, and according to the calculator, converting all of these records to lat-long in one month with Google would cost $344. However — we would only pay $144 because Google offers a recurring $200 monthly credit.

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

Mapquest is a bit cheaper, we could do 75,000 transactions per month for $199.

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

OpenCage Data allows 2.500 free requests per day, but did not appear to be accurate on first attempt. https://opencagedata.com/

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

However, it looks like typing in the address to Google, it doesn't appear the placement of the cardinal direction matters. (19 w 25th street equates to the same place as 19 25th st w).

Proposing moving forward storing information in its directional format (ie. not lat/long) coordinates, so as to avoid API fees.

(See discussion above)

@walinchus

walinchus commented 6 years ago

Yes that is good. We applied, as a nonprofit, to use Google's API key for free and they granted it to us. There is still a limit, I forget off the top of my head. but long story short if it's not easy to get things into Lat/Long I can convert the addresses to Lat/Long in R no problem.

I will look up the limit, as we might hit it.

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

@walinchus Right on! Another thing we could do, is build in a function to convert and store the addresses, but only do a certain amount per day. That way we could ensure each day we only request up to the free limit, and then over time we'd build up the DB

ludstuen90 commented 6 years ago

Outside the scope of this app. Closing issue. (See #33 )