Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data into a location name?

Posted by Devlin_Donnelly on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @03:45PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I am working on a web-based application and I want to read in GPS coordinates provided by the user's browser and output a specific location such as the name of a city or other locality.

Thanks for any tips.

( 6 comments | 3 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by gspyrou on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @04:44PM (#4971074)

Try using Google maps reverse geocoding https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/#...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by Devlin_Donnelly on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @05:59PM (#4971410)

Thanks for the idea, but apparently google only allows the use this service in conjunction with Google maps, so it won't work for my project.

Maybe there are some open source map databases of GPS coordinates mapped to political/municipal localities?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by bartonfink on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @06:13PM (#4971451)

MapQuest offers a geocoding service which doesn't tie you to MapQuest's maps the way Google does. It's free up to some usage amount (I think it's 5k requests a day). You can see more here:

http://www.mapquestapi.com/geocoding/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by Devlin_Donnelly on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @06:37PM (#4971540)

Thanks it looks like this one might work for my needs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by got2surf on Friday December 28, 2012 @02:59AM (#4976937)

If by chance you're using Ruby on Rails, then http://www.rubygeocoder.com/ is great.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data ... by belbn on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @03:46PM (#4970815)

http://www.google.com/search?q=GPSDATA

[ Parent | on HN ]