The new geocoding service (Locatieserver)
The Dutch National SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) PDOK has recently introduced a new geocoding service (Locatieserver) that will in due time replace the current one.The new service is very well documented, based on open source stack, available to all and the PDOK community is available for information about the service and eventual feedback. Naturally most of the information available is in Dutch.
For these same reasons I am not going to go into details about the services.
FME and the Locatieserver
Essentially the geocoding service is an API and communicating with a API's is well demonstrated in the Safe Software Blog.There are however a few issues that needs some mentioning, especially if you can't read Dutch ;)
- The geocoding service is based on the BAG, the national building and addresses registration system.
- The geocoding service enables you to choose from two different types of services. The free service, which is comparable to the current geocoding service and the suggest & lookup service that is composed of two endpoints that essentially work together.
- The geocoding services offer a wide range of options that are not available in the current geocoding service.
Putting it all together
Back in 2013 when I started writing about FME and share examples on how to use it, there was no real easy way how to share your workspaces, beside the making them available for download of mailing them.
Luckily nowadays the FME Hub is incorporated into the Workbench application, which makes it very easy to grab a transformer created by somebody else.
For demonstration purposes I have actually decided on sharing a template and not a transformer.
My intention is to demonstrate how you can make a simple start with this service and FME especially when taking in consideration all the options this services provides.
My intention is to demonstrate how you can make a simple start with this service and FME especially when taking in consideration all the options this services provides.
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| PDOKLocatieserver template |
The template
A FME template is a great way of sharing workspaces because you can incorporate the source data in it. In this specific case the source is an online CSV file that contains addresses of educational facilities.
As simple validation and clearing some duplicate data is done and then the service type selection is done via a Tester transformer and user parameter.
The geocoding services return JSON by default, but XML is also available for the XML savvies.
Both types of services return multiple results and each result as a score. The highest the score value the highest the probability that it's the best match.
Once the result with the highest score is sorted per request it a simple matter to transform it into a point feature with the GeometryReplacer transfomer.
I have selected to use the geometrie_rd attribute to which contains the coordinate values in the Dutch national coordinate system, if you are more internationally oriented the service also returns a set of coordinates in WGS84.
The results are written into a SQLlite database, a format that is supported by most of the open source and propriety GIS applications.
What to try it out yourself? first of all download FME 2017 (still in Beta while writing this post) and check out FME Hub for the template.
Have Fun!
As simple validation and clearing some duplicate data is done and then the service type selection is done via a Tester transformer and user parameter.
The geocoding services return JSON by default, but XML is also available for the XML savvies.Both types of services return multiple results and each result as a score. The highest the score value the highest the probability that it's the best match.
Once the result with the highest score is sorted per request it a simple matter to transform it into a point feature with the GeometryReplacer transfomer.
I have selected to use the geometrie_rd attribute to which contains the coordinate values in the Dutch national coordinate system, if you are more internationally oriented the service also returns a set of coordinates in WGS84.
The results are written into a SQLlite database, a format that is supported by most of the open source and propriety GIS applications.
What to try it out yourself? first of all download FME 2017 (still in Beta while writing this post) and check out FME Hub for the template.
Have Fun!
