GeoNames Forum

Is that possible?

Right now, it only has the optional radius filter and I sometimes get funky results from the web service.

To be specific, I would like to limit it to only return results of fclass A.

Thanks in advance,
javester

First of all, I mistyped the subject line on my earlier post. I meant findNearbyPlaceName.

As for my problem, what do I mean exactly by funky?

I called the service as follows:

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyPlaceName?lat=37.421981&lng=-122.084013

And it returns "Santiago Villa Mobile Home Park" which is 1.377 kms away. Its feature class P (city, village...)

Just 0.07 kms from that spot though is "Googleplex", with feature class "S", which findPlaceName never returns, even if I limit the radius parameter.

Which makes me wonder if findNearbyPlaceName is hardwired to only query P class features.

Hi javester

The findNearbyPlaceName service is restricted to populated places. There is another service called findNearby for all features.

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearby?lat=37.421981&lng=-122.084013

It also takes the optional parameter featureClass to restrict the search to a featureClass.

Example :
http://ws.geonames.org/findNearby?lat=37.421981&lng=-122.084013&featureClass=A

The 'findNearby' service is undocument as it is not yet performance optimized.

Regards

Marc

Thanks heaps Marc for the quick reply!

BTW, when do you expect the findNearby service to be officially launched? I would like to take advantage of it for a project I'm working on and its just about ready for primetime.

BTW, does geonames have a Paypal account? We'd like to contribute to such a worthy cause...

More power to Geonames!
javester

Hi Javester

I don't know when the findNearby will be launched and documented. Do you only need featureClass=A ? It would be easy for me to set up a database index for this, so you don't have to wait till all possible search parameter combinations have acceptable performance.

Regards

Marc

PS : Yes there is a paypal account : http://www.geonames.org/donations.html

Marc,
It turns out I do need something like findNearby to find the nearest feature, regardless of class.

I now use FindNearbyPostalCodes instead to get the city/town/village name reliably, which was the original reason why I wanted to filter on class A.

So findNearby's current behavior is really what I need. Would it be OK to use it even though its still not officially launched? (cross fingers)

Best,
Javester

Javester

Of course you can use it and I don't expect changes in the API. The only thing that prevents an official release is the fact that I did not yet had the time to look at performance optimizations.

Regards

Marc

Hi. Would it be possible to add featureCode parameter to the FindNearby. I would like to find, say, just the ATMs 10km from a lat/lon point. Sorry if it's a newbie question.

Try the 'featureCode' parameter, example : http://ws.geonames.org/findNearby?lat=37.421981&lng=-122.084013&featureCode=HTL&maxRows=10&radius=10

We have hardly any ATM information. For Switzerland I have a file somewhere for all Raiffeisenbank ATM, but it is not yet loaded into GeoNames. For other countries you could help us and ask the banks for ATM data.

Regards

Marc

Many thanks for quick reply.