[Data-modeling] Geosearch service (was Re: Modeling uncertainty)

[Faye Harris]

Hi Tom,

My post was meant to point out that when it comes to modeling 
geographical data, there is established convention regarding concepts of 
"near" or proximity. A "place" can be expressed as a point or a shape, 
which the query language naturally supports. Modeling this data using 
the same convention would result in better ability for retrieval and 
analysis down the road.

-- Faye


Tom Morris wrote:
> Thanks Faye.  I was aware of that service and had explicitly searched,
> unsuccessfully, for information on it, so I appreciate the pointer.
> You might want to add it to
> https://www.freebase.com/view/freebase/metaweb_api_service and
> http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000092a10a0
>
> While I'll definitely check out the new service, my original comment
> was about the modeling side of things, not the query side of things.
> For example, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic
> Places has a boolean flag on their locations called "Vicinity."  If
> this flag is set True in their database, there's no way to record that
> location in Metaweb.  It's also not uncommon in the historical record
> to have locations recorded imprecisely saying, for example, that
> someone was from "near Oxford" when they lived in an outlying village
> or farm.  Recording the location as "Oxford" is inaccurate, but the
> alternative is to just drop the location altogether and lose
> information.
>
> Tom
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Faye Harris <faye at metaweb.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hi Tom,
>>
>> This just caught my attention.
>>
>> For location-related queries, are you aware of Freebase's
>> /api/service/geosearch? Given a search query and some geographical
>> requirement, it returns you results that match your search phrase and
>> fit your geographical requirement. Specifically, you can use the
>> parameter "within" to pass in "a floating pointing number denoting the
>> radius in kilometers searched from the anchor location".
>>
>> For example, the following query returns restaurants within 20km of
>> Boston (city center):
>> http://freebase.com/api/service/geosearch?location=/en/boston_massachusetts&type=/dining/restaurant&within=20&indent=1
>>
>> Does that meet your needs? Documentation for /api/service/geosearch is
>> available at:
>> http://freebase.com/api/service/geosearch?help
>>
>> -- Faye
>>
>>
>> Tom Morris wrote:
>>     
>>> Location - If I'm told that something is "near" or "in the vicinity
>>> of" a location, currently my choices are to either not record the fact
>>> or to guess at a way to reduce the precision in a way that's still
>>> accurate.  I could say that something which is "near Boston" is "in
>>> Massachusetts," but a) that might not be true and b) that's not the
>>> information that I have.
>>>       
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