What is Geocoding?
IMPORTANT: MapPoint Web Service was retired on November 18, 2011. Please see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd877180.aspx for a list of current Bing Maps APIs.
Geocoding is the process of determining the latitude and longitude coordinates for a physical address. Your data must contain latitude and longitude coordinates in decimal degrees before you can access the data programmatically in your MapPoint Web Service solutions.
A location data source file can contain latitude and longitude coordinates before you upload it through the CSS or the Customer Data Service API. However, if those fields are empty or if the entries are not valid, MapPoint geocodes the data as part of the upload process and adds the coordinates to your data files in the Latitude and Longitude fields.
If you upload a location data source in which one or more entities have latitude and longitude coordinates but the rest do not, the upload process geocodes only those entities that do not have entries in the Latitude and Longitude fields. If you want entities that already have latitude and longitude coordinates to be re-geocoded, delete the entries in the Latitude and Longitude fields before you upload the data source.
MapPoint does not geocode polygon files. However, polygon data source files use latitude and longitude coordinates in the following ways:
To define the boundaries of the polygon—The ExteriorRing and InteriorRing fields contain sets of latitude and longitude coordinates that define the vertices of the exterior boundary of each polygon and the vertices of polygons that are contained within the exterior polygon.
To associate a single point with a polygon (point in polygon)—As with location data sources, polygon data sources must have fields named Latitude and Longitude. When you upload a polygon data source, MapPoint evaluates each polygon and creates a rectangle that encompasses the polygon, called a bounding rectangle. MapPoint adds four fields to your data source for the latitude and longitude coordinates of the northeastern and southwestern corners of the rectangle. Additionally, if the Latitude and Longitude fields are empty when you upload the file, MapPoint finds the center point of the bounding rectangle and populates the fields with latitude and longitude coordinates for that point. Because polygons can have irregular shapes, the resulting point might not be within the polygon. If the Latitude and Longitude fields contain values, MapPoint accepts those values as correct.
When you supply latitude and longitude coordinates, latitudes north of the equator must be positive numbers and latitudes south of the equator must be negative numbers. Similarly, longitudes west of the prime meridian (0 degrees) are negative, and longitudes east of the prime meridian are positive.
When your location data source is geocoded, MapPoint checks for MatchCode, MatchedMethod, and MatchedAddress fields for each entity. If the fields do not exist, they are added. The fields are then populated with information about the quality of the geocoded results. If you download the file, you can view these fields. However, if you intend to upload the file again, do not change the values.
You can use the Manage Locations page to view and correct entities that were not geocoded correctly.
On the Home page, click the edit icon next to the data source, and then filter the entities by match code and matched method.
See Also
Concepts
Reviewing and Correcting Geocoded Results
Requirements for Location Data Sources
Requirements for Polygon Data Sources
Understanding Geocoded Results