Recently there have been some geocoding improvements with regards to our core data bundle, namely the inclusion of an Address Points database from TomTom. The US version of this database has already been included with our data install but with the next release of the TomTom data (Q4 2012 vintage) we are going to be including an Address Points database for Canada too.
Here is some information about the US Address Points:
- The file includes around 90 million parcel centroids, a parcel is the property boundary of an address; most of the points in the database are the centroid of the property boundary. However some of the points are edited by TomTom to rooftop accuracy.
- The Address Points database is a 5GB Calgary file which is part of the data install.
- Both the geocoding macro and geocoding app have been updated to include the option to use the Address Points file. (The default option in the macro is to not use this new feature so that existing modules will continue to run as expected.)
- To be able to use the matching to Address Points option CASS must be enabled.
- A new GeoLevel for matched addresses has been created, “Actual” to indicate it is the physical location.
The Canadian version of the Address Points database is very similar to the US version and a supporting macro has been created which works in a similar way to the US geocoding macro. The Calgary file is however considerable smaller, with only around 2 million records and a file size of just ~80MB.
Some more exciting news about this database is the fact that shortly (within the next few weeks) the Alteryx Gallery will be getting a data update and this will mean the inclusion of TomTom Address Points. To go along with this the Gallery will also be getting a new App to help users with geocoding their data.
