Practice exercises
Here are weblinks to provide additional resources so that you can complete the below exercises:
Click on the following links, which will open in a new window.
Exercise 1: Geocode a single address
"10 Downing Street" on OpenStreetMap
"The White House" on OpenStreetMap
GPS Visualizer’s Quick Geocoder page
Exercise 2: Geocode a batch of addresses
California Department of Education data files on private schools
Accessing a MapQuest key:
1) You can begin accessing a key to MapQuest by clicking on the link just above the input box on the batch geocoding page of GPS Visualizer
or
2) Navigate directly to developer.mapquest.com. From there you will be taken to the MapQuest developer’s site where you can create a free developer account. A popup window will walk you through the remaining steps. Be sure to select the checkbox when asked if you would like to use an AppKey. It might take some time before your account is activated.
Batch Geocoding at www.findlatitudeandlongitude.com
Exercise 3: Geocoding places
The Gazetteer of British Place Names
US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s GeoNames WMS Viewer
Exercise 4: View EXIF data using online tools
Several online tools exist that allow you to enter the URL for a photograph or upload your own and view the EXIF data contained within the image. For this exercise, we will use one popular online tool called Jeffrey’s EXIF Viewer.
Exercise 5: Using EXIFTool
EXIFTool is a popular free software tool that can be used to read and write metadata for digital files.
Exercise 6: Extract geodata from text using CLAVIN
One free and open source tool for geoparsing is the Cartographic Location and Vicinity Indexer (CLAVIN). This tool combines the open source named entity recognizer developed by Stanford University and the GeoNames gazetteer, adding its own algorithms for resolving place name ambiguities.
Exercise 7: Ad hoc search using Frankenplace
Another interesting tool that attempts to provide structure to unstructured text is Frankenplace.com. This site analyzes text input and attempts to produce heatmaps of the text based on where it is most likely to appear.
Exercise 8: Exploring GapVis
GapVis is a beta software project being produced as part of the Google Ancient Places project. As described in the project overview, GapVis is a digital interface for exploring texts that reference ancient places and accessing those places with visualization tools.