Geocoding Overview

Geocoding is one of the main entry points to data enrichment. An address is the most common tie point that users have in their data and a great geocoder is paramount to the process of matching addresses to LightBox data. The main challenge is that addresses are not always clean, can be in different formats, and are frequently incomplete. Matching address data requires an engine that will go through multiple fuzzy iterations to find the appropriate match.  The responsibility of a great geocoding engine is to then apply a confidence score so that you know the address we matched to is the address you are seeking.

The LightBox Geocoding API performs two primary functions: parsing and matching.

• Parsing refers to the process of taking an unformatted or incorrectly formatted address and segmenting it into standardized components, such as street number, city, zip code, etc.
• Matching an address is the process of pairing an address with a physical location, ensuring the address that was input corresponds with the correct real-world coordinates.

Together, these processes standardize and validate address data, allowing LightBox Geocoding API users to significantly improve the quality of their data.

Our API results include a confidence score, which indicates the likelihood that the address that has been input was accurately matched to the correct location. High-quality input addresses are easily parsed and matched and have a high confidence score. Low-quality input addresses, such as those with significant misspellings, numerous incorrect values, conflicting values, and other issues can be parsed and matched in most cases, but the confidence score may be lower.

Features

• Search - Used to match a full address, partial address or a set of parsed address fields to a geo-location and provide links back to other LightBox resources, such as Parcel, Assessment and Structure data.
• Parsed - Used to match a set of address fields that have already been parsed out. This will bypass the LightBox geocoding parsing of the full address string.
• Auto Complete - Used as a type-ahead service that presents multiple results to the end user for target identification.
• Data Enrichment - Each response will return a set of LightBox IDs that link the address back to our core data objects.
• Matching - Used with the returned LightBox ID to match back to LightBox data, such as the Smart Fabric that you are housing in your data store. 
• Reverse Geocoding -Find the nearest address or addresses to a latitude and longitude location.

LightBox ID

The point location that is returned by a geocoder is important, and understanding the location precision is also important, but stopping there greatly limits your capabilities. The LightBox Geocoder not only returns the point location, along with a confidence score, and a location-precision code, but it also returns a set of related LightBox IDs for LightBox resources, such as Parcel, Structure, Assessment, Location, and Address data.

Whether you are looking for a traditional geocoding API that returns a point location along with a confidence score and geo-precision code, or you have data that needs enriching with LightBox data, our Geocoding endpoint has you covered.

• Geocoding Documentation
• Geocoding Release Notes