Parse Address

Feature Description

When visualizing spatial data for a region, obtaining spatial coordinates of geographic entities is essential for improving positional accuracy. However, most existing data on the internet only contains textual address descriptions without coordinate information. The Parse Address functionality matches these text-based addresses with existing addresses in online resources to acquire precise longitude and latitude coordinates.

Currently, this feature only supports extracting address information from tabular datasets. If your data is saved as Excel, CSV, or TXT files, you must first convert them into tabular datasets. For conversion details, please refer to the Import Data page. Additionally, ensure your computer has an active internet connection before using this feature.

Operation Guide

Using a Beijing Lianjia real estate Excel file containing detailed property addresses as an example, this section demonstrates how to perform address parsing and visualize the positional information on a map.

Figure: Tabular dataset after importing Excel
Note:

If null values exist in the parsed X/Y fields, it indicates failed parsing attempts. Users can re-execute the parse address operation by checking the Only parse empty coordinates checkbox in the Parse Address dialog.

Figure: Parse address results
Figure: Result of overlaying point dataset converted from attributes onto online map
  1. Import the Excel file into the target datasource using Data Import functionality. The imported file will exist as a tabular dataset. For data import operations, see Import Data.
  2. Click the Online Tab -> Services group -> Parse Address button. Configure parameters in the Parse Address dialog:
    • Datasources: Select the datasource containing the dataset to parse.
    • Dataset: Choose the target tabular dataset (only tabular datasets are supported).
    • City Field: Select the field containing city information (e.g., city field) to resolve ambiguities for identical addresses in different cities.
    • Address Field: Select the field storing detailed addresses (e.g., address field).
    • X/Y Fields: Specify fields to store parsed coordinates. By default, new X/Y fields will be created. Existing fields can also be selected.
    • Generate Points: Check this option to create point datasets from coordinates. Enable this option here.
    • Only parse empty coordinates: Check this when reprocessing datasets with previously failed parsing attempts. Leave unchecked for initial processing.
  3. After configuring parameters, click OK to execute. Upon completion, X and Y fields will be automatically generated in the attribute table storing parsed coordinates.
  4. Overlay the generated point dataset on an online map to visualize spatial positions of properties as shown below: