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How to geocode a list of addresses to a GPX file (on linux or android), ideally without using a service (linkage.ds8.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/osm@feddit.uk
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cross-posted from: https://linkage.ds8.zone/post/517080

I have over 700 street addresses that ultimately need to become a category or group of favourites in #OSMand. In the past I used a web service called something like nomenatum. I don’t think that option still exists. This article suggests batch encoding on this site, claiming it’s gratis but it looks like a costly subscription.

I must say that using a service to do the job of software is not a great idea. We have #OpenStreetMaps. In principle, OSM and a tool should be able to handle this offline without a service.

Of course it’s possible to search each address by hand in OSMand and then save the location. It would be absurdly labor intensive but it proves that a service is not needed, in principle.

Is there any way to feed a list of addresses to OSMand?

Or is there a linux app that can do this work, ideally offline?

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

You should be able to run Nominatim in Docker and script that, but if you're looking for a ready-made program for this very specific use case, bad luck.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    thanks. Indeed I just checked and Nominatim is still viable. I may just do that.

    Though I must say it’s bizarre that such a common need has no software. Everytime I travel somewhere, reviews for interesting restaurants, beer, attractions, etc, only give addresses, not GPS coords. I would expect by now someone would have been driven mad by all the manual entry by hand.

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    • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I had the same challenge. I ended up asking chatgpt to write me a Python script that takes a list of coordinates + descriptions and writes a .gpx file. I then import the file as favorites on OSMand.

    The script uses the python library gpxpy. It loops through the list of locations, creates a gpx waypoint for each, converts it to XML, and writes it to a .gpx file. This file can then be imported to Osmand.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    In my case I need geocoding because I am starting with addresses, not coordinates.

    Nonetheless, I am amazed to hear that chatgpt can write software like that. I am getting out of touch because I boycott Cloudflare, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. So I appreciate the tip. Theoretically I could make use of that for my 2nd step of going from DB to GPX file, but I’ll be tempted to try something like gpsbabel first.

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