Ubiquitous Geographic Information (UBGI) and address standards

Abstract

There can be hardly any doubt that the new generation of geographic information (UBGI) will have a profound impact on every aspect of GIS. Address and address standard would be no exception. This paper reviews the issues regarding address and address standards in UBGI perspective. More specifically, this paper examines the concept of UBGI and the relationship between UBGI and address standard and the possible mechanism to handle various address-related issues in UBGI context. Address is important because it is one of the major forms of spatial referencing, which in turn is one of the fundamental information for providing context. The challenge is how we extract unambiguous location information from the maze of different address formats. In UBGI environment, the location information of a feature can be easily discovered through the use of geo-labeling mechanism. Then the location information can be easily exchanged and used without further conversion or transformation through an overarching mechanism for spatial referencing (dynamic position identification scheme, such as u-position). The “free text” address can be correctly interpreted since the geographic context within which the address is used will be always provided in UBGI environment and the meaning of the address will become obvious given the context. These are just a handful of the possibilities that UBGI can benefit address standards. The concepts and standards that are being developed in UBGI field will certainly help to resolve some of the difficult issues in standardizing addresses.