
Open Location Code: Easier location encoding - yarapavan
http://openlocationcode.com/
======
fouc
Makes me think of what3words.com

edit: why they're taking a novel approach: [https://github.com/google/open-
location-code/wiki/Evaluation...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems)

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
The big advantage over w3w is that this is open. Proprietary addressing
systems are a bad thing for fairly obvious reasons.

~~~
rspeer
The other advantage of this over w3w is that it the encoding makes any kind of
sense.

w3w's feature where it moves an address onto a different continent because you
forgot to pluralize a word is the worst idea for an address encoding.

~~~
SteveCoast
It was actually by design, so you know you have the wrong place. We already
have systems like postcodes where small changes result in small geographic
offsets and they have major downsides too.

Geocoding seems really simple until you have to build one and have customers
use it.

~~~
rspeer
Geocoding is probably simpler if its users aren't "customers".

Lots of systems have checksums. It appears to me that what3words's complexity
is designed to make it intentionally difficult for someone else to
reimplement.

------
yarapavan
Additional info:

[1] [https://plus.codes/developers](https://plus.codes/developers) \- Plus
codes are based on Open Location Code (OLC, for short), an open-source project
initiated by a group of Google engineers.

[2] [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc) \- Definition document - Open
Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses, Independent of Building
Numbers And Street Names

[3] [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code](https://github.com/google/open-location-code) \- Github repo

[4] [https://plus.codes/howitworks](https://plus.codes/howitworks) \- How it
works

------
mtmail

      Making a mistake with a code may simply display
      somewhere else - for example, on What3Words,
      "banana rabbit monkey" is a location in Argentina,
      "banana monkey rabbit" is in Russia.
    

Yes, and the open location code 6GCRPR6C+24 is in Nirobi, while 9GCRPR6C+24 is
in Russia. Similar when I make a mistake in a UK postcode (N6 = London, M6 =
Manchester)

~~~
bovermyer
So the real problem, then, is not the coding system, but rather that humans
are involved at all.

~~~
mtmail
A checksum would help and give immediate feedback that the code was entered
wrong.

------
nullsmack
Oh, it's like the Grid Square system that Ham Radio operators use:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System)
Just with a greater precision since it seems to go down to a very localized
area, such as a building.

------
xixi77
After reading their evaluation document, I kinda see the use case. I
personally find the mix of letters and numbers a little annoying though.

I think it would be better to use only letters for the first 8 symbols
(perhaps after getting rid of some particularly confusing ones like "I"), and
only numbers for the rest.

This way you don't need the plus, can use all 10 digits without a chance to
confuse them with a letter, remove more potential letter-digit mixups such as
6/G or 7/F in some handwritings, and most importantly make the whole thing a
lot easier to say (e.g. over the phone), write (on a phone keyboard you would
need only one switch between numeric and alpha layouts, you _do_ want this to
be easily texted!), and remember (it's easier to remember a sequence of just
letters followed by a sequence of just numbers, imo, even if it's one or two
characters longer)

~~~
freyfogle
In many parts of the world they use different alphabets - Cyrillic, Arabic,
etc

~~~
xixi77
True, and definitely an argument to consider full numeric. I am sure they've
thought about that already and decided against though, so I didn't want to go
that far.

Also, in practice today there are not many people anywhere in the world who
are not at least somewhat familiar with the Latin alphabet to the point they
wouldn't be able to recognize/read/write the letters, and (possibly excepting
a few old typewriters here and there) people would generally be able to enter
letters of standard Latin alphabet into whatever devices they are dealing
with.

------
sllabres
Is there an advantage over the already established Maidenhead Locator system?
[1] Form a first look it seems very similar.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System)

~~~
niftich
According to their evaluation [1]:

 _" Maidenhead Locator System codes explicitly represent areas, and can be
truncated in a similar way to Open Location Codes. The accuracy and length of
the codes is similar, but Maidenhead Locator System codes include vowels and
so the generated codes include words"_

 _" Maidenhead Locator System codes are based on an interleaving of latitude
and longitude, and so are truncatable, and nearby locations have similar
codes. It is only formally defined to a length of 8 characters."_

This suggests (when compared with their 'desired attributes' [2]) that their
innovation over it is increased precision, and a different symbol alphabet to
reduce profanity.

[1] [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems#maidenhead-locator-system-
mls) [2] [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems#desired-attributes)

~~~
tcptomato
How did you conclude from "The accuracy and length of the codes is similar"
that it has increased precision?

------
bacondude3
Off-topic, but does anyone know how this website was created? It seems too
much of a coincidence that it looks nearly identical to
[https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/).

~~~
stephenwilliams
GitHub Pages Slate theme

[https://pages-themes.github.io/slate/](https://pages-themes.github.io/slate/)

~~~
bacondude3
Thanks!

------
michaelmior
> Each place has only one code.

This doesn't really seem to be true in practice. For a reasonably large
building, it seems like I could end up with two codes which for all practical
purposes, are equivalent.

~~~
slx26
"place" is very ambiguous. technically, a place might include several
"regions". at the same time, a big building can have several entries, which
can be referenced with different codes. and still, codes can vary in length
and hence, resolution.

but I agree that the sentence itself is a bit confusing and very not
technically meaningful or informative.

~~~
shaftway
I think the point they're trying to convey is that no two codes resolve to
overlapping rectangles.

In my town there are two zip codes, but both of these are handled by the same
post office, so it doesn't really matter which one you use. This can cause
confusion though. Ensuring that multiple codes don't resolve to the same place
(i.e. rectangle) means that there isn't this confusion.

------
eruci
latitude,longitude up to the 5th decimal point is easier to remember. and more
intuitive.

~~~
d215
lat,lon doesn't have any precision attached to it. Also, you might be
surprised how many times people get them reversed. Hey, even geojson encodes
it as lon,lat.

Also easily normalizing (lat,lon)s isn't so straight forward.

And then there's subtleties when people are actually not using the WGS84 but a
crs/datum one shifted a few tens of miles.

Sort of surprised that nobody compares this to geohash[0], though.

I hope that Google will be throwing its weight behind it (seems so for now)
and proposes a rfc for this so we can stop bikeshedding about geo encoding
standards.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohash)

~~~
eruci
Geohash is a great idea, but at the end of the day all these systems are a
mapping to latitude,longitude. The lat,lon precision can be derived from the
number of digits after the decimal point. The main argument for the existence
of these systems is that lat,lon is hard to remember. Here is a simple
solution, convert any lat,lon pair to an easier to remember pair (ie a pair
where numbers are repetitive, consecutive, etc).

for eg: 45.89988,-64.36288 -> 45.9,-64.363

and so on. It is a simple hack making ll memorable without sacrificing much
accuracy.

[https://geocode.xyz/45.89988,-64.36288](https://geocode.xyz/45.89988,-64.36288)

------
golergka
Good, now we just have one more format in addition to all the existing ones.
(I'm too lazy to look up the xkcd link).

~~~
mtmail
You probably mean the one about the 14 standards
[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/) but there's one even more
relevant about creating a geohashing algorithm
[https://www.xkcd.com/426/](https://www.xkcd.com/426/) Truly there's one for
every nerdy occasion.

