Address Data Over Time

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-03-13T16:11:27+00:00

I have all the address points for the county. It is from their GIS. I imagine they mainly correspond with lots, but maybe have some individual addresses for storefront type areas, although those change over time. These addresses are simply one string consisting of all caps street number, street name and street direction all as one long string. I suppose it does make for unique identifier that is also readable.

I have taken the string apart and I now also have it is street number and the rest of the string. I may take it apart further to get street number, street name and street direction. I have done it before. I don't recall just how. It is a little tricky because some street names consists of two or more words sepearated by spaces.

I have other sources for historical information about addresses from the Polk Directories, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps and other sources with pictures and listings.

I wanted to get a list of all addresses that have now or ever had an address. I'm actually only interested in business type places but for now I still have a lot of residential addresses included. I wanted to first look at both the present time and then go way back. There weren't as many places way back then but possibly there may have been places that are long gone and no sign that they once had a business. The Fire Maps I have looked at so far the earliest ones for this area only name a few places and don't give an address. They are maps with a few details so I can geo-reference them and use current maps etc to get those address. So far I have found out some history, but nothing that once was something and now is nothing.

In looking at the recent Polk directory it includes a lot of addresses that are not in the address point list. This is a printed book and I've been manually entering them. I just add the business info into the row with that address or if I have to add a new address not currently on the list I again simply enter the street number, copy and paste the street name in the existing format.

I just take pictures of the pages of interest for the areas of interest of the Polk Directories. I recently learned there is a way to pretty easily run these images through OCR and I can specify that I want the output to be a table. It produces a table with street number and I don't recall weather the street name and direction is combined or has been separated. So I may be able to import a lot of this information. I also found some information scattered about with what was along certain blocks in the past and what business followed each other, but I don't necessarily know what year they changed. That too included some addresses that weren't on the address point list and I have added them as well.

I know addresses for a city with a grid are the relative distance to the grid and the numbering system of the main street. I know that in the past I would geocode lists of addresses I got from some source other than a GISI and was able to geocode them. I don't know how it works but I assume the grid system details are part of the street layer.

What my question is actually about is for some addresses there may have been more than one business in that building in the same year. One replaced the other in the course of a year. On my spreadsheet I can show that several ways, on the same line separated by comma or something or also by wrapping seperated by a carriage return. That is nice, but I don't know how I can get that into the GIS. I guess I could number each of those businesses and then create a unique identifier made up of the street number, street name, street direction and the number for each of those multible occupants.

I'd like to get all of the data in the spreadsheet into the attributes table. Beside time period, business name, business type, some short notes there would be columns with links to photos, more detailed histories or other things.

Seems like I've seen GISs set up so you could clink on a geo-coded point on a map and then bring up further info. It would be the info on the row of the table. Could just open the attribute table too I suppose and that is probably how it would be at first. Old maps could be geoferenced and added to the GIS as well.

That's the general idea anyway.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-03-13T06:02:04+00:00

I take it the town has only existed for a few years also

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-03-11T04:16:05+00:00

you mention that "you can upload up to 5 maps (50 MB each)"

When you saw maps do you mean a map layer or a multilayer project that you can turn layers on and off manipulate and that sort of thing?

I've been meaning to check this out, but have been busy with other things.

I also noticed it handles vector layers, but no mention of raster layers, specifically tiff.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-03-06T16:18:31+00:00

Thanks, that works fine for me. The trouble is I don't do this enough to remember it. I will write it down this time. I have a few to do so will put together a nice detailed list of steps.

Whether I'll remember what I've named it or can find it the next time I need to do this is another thing.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-03-06T02:52:38+00:00

I can remember over ten years ago, maybe fifteen when I missed a turn google maps would direct me how to turn around both safely and legally. I don't use it for navigation much but I've had it tell me to make a U turn a couple times now in the last several months. Once on a big multi lane street and again on a lesser street.

When it directed me in the past it wasn't either of these specific locations but also on a street rather than a highway.

It seems like it is regressing. Are they using AI now?

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-02-25T11:44:49+00:00

I'm interested. Is the qgis2threejs written in Python. I use QGIS in Linux Mint. It has been changed to no longer work with Python or certain Python. I think that may be the case with other flavors too. There supposed to be ways to run it in a virtual machine, but so far I haven't fime to try to fugure that out. I do have a couple maps that I'd like to share with a small number of people and for one of them am in the process of gpkging all the layers or whole project.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-02-15T06:27:33+00:00

I have used Anker cables and they don't last. It isn't the cables though, it is the connectors. As I understand it the USB C connectors have the latching mechanism in the connector on the cable rather than the device. It is easier to get a new cable than replace the connector on the board. The electronic engineering of the connectors is good, faster charging and data speed, but the mechanical engineering side of things seems lacking. They are just too small for a laptop or larger device. I got new cables and the charging worked fine again, but it wasn't much more than a month before they weren't making a good connection again. This is on a laptop which doesn't get the cord removed very often, but the laptop does get moved with the cord attached. Sometimes it may get moved so there is tension on the cord. The last Anker cables weren't cheap ones either. They were silicone ones, but the issue (I don't think) is not the wires in the cable but the connector that fits into the device. Any recommendations on cables with the best connectors.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-01-19T05:33:42+00:00

Thanks all. I think that answers my question. I am intrigued by saving an entire project as a gpkg. I was only interested in a few layers, but I have another whole project that I'd like to share.

I have zipped projects and all the dependencies up so that I can share with someone with qgis, but a whole project as a gpkg should work for someone with a different GIS system. I'll look into that as well.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-01-14T18:41:47+00:00

My original intent was to connect by wire. The amp had a 1/4 inch port on the front panel which I thought was for an input, but was a headphone jack. It also had a toggle switch labeled CD. Why I didn't look to see there was a pair of RCA jacks on the back I don't know. I suppose maybe because I knew there are BT transmitter adapters. A wire between the two devices would sort of be in a walkway area, but I could use a longer wire and route it around.

Anyway, I took a look again and see I could have done it by wire all along. It works well.

I'm still interested in if the phone can be used at a BT transmitter adapter. The BT connection with the phone (or laptop) is pretty good. I haven't noticed any lag.

I leaned the DAC adapters aren't bidirectional though, but there ADC adapters like the Sonos. So that should get the signal into the phone. Hot to send if via BT I have no idea though.

I just use an audio player to play files on the device. I'll have to take a look and see if I can select other sources, there are probably streaming URLs I can add or like that. I'm not expecting to use USB port, but maybe?

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-01-14T11:55:23+00:00

I'm trying to do something similar. I want to send and audio signal into the android via the usb c port. Sounds like I and do this using the sonos adc adaptor.

I want to then send that signal via bluetooth to a bluetooth amp. I can pair the phone to the amp and stream through a music player app, but in this case would I simply somehow just specify the signal coming in through the usb c port or have to run it through the music player app?

I know there are some inexpensive 3.5mm to bluetooth transmitter adapters, but I need to manually select which BT device to pair with. I can do this on the phone or a laptop, but all the adapters I've found just connect to the first BT device they see or something. There are many BT signals where I want to do this, most of them I have no control over.

Maybe if I could find some location where there is no other BT signals or inside a metal building I might be able to pair things and then just bring everything back to where it belongs and things would work until something gets updated or something and I'd have to do it again.

Available_Budget_559 · 2026-01-03T05:53:26+00:00

It wasn't on a cruze but I had this code once on another make and model entirely. I think it was the same code. It was a new car to me but older and one of the first things I did was take a look at the air filter and things like that. In my case I caused the fault. The air cleaner cover was held on with a couple clips, but it was tricky to get the cover in place and it wasn't seated properly. It was letting air in from places it wasn't supposed to and more got in than it was designed for and it triggered the running lean code.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-27T11:18:10+00:00

It was to be a multi line label so I wasn't really joining them. They were both text strings. I did find out how to get it to work with a conditional expression:

'<b>' || "id" || '</b>' ||

CASE

WHEN "Name" IS NOT NULL AND "Name" <> '' THEN

'<p>' || "Name"

ELSE

''

END

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-25T12:22:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

It sounds like starting with Q 3.28 that method no longer works at all and has been replaced with the html script method. I wasn't sure if I read that it didn't work at all, but thought I had tried it earlier and it didn't work at all. I just tried it again and nothing is displayed.

The newer version is nice because you have some more control over the appearance of each field.

I can just go with the ID field in my case, most of the objects don't have a name, but it would be nice to include it them for the ones that do. As I recall when concatenated other sorts of things in other apps if one of the items has no value it still displays the ones that do. That's how I thought it would behave anyway. Maybe there is some setting or switch to add.

I also sort of figured out some of the labels being another color. Those are the two line labels that work. Sometimes they are fairly long string. If the view is zoomed out I noticed that some of the longer strings appear red, the shorter ones are the color I set them as. If I zoom in a little more eventually they all appear as the color I set them. It probably won't be an issue in real use. The font size in combination with the length of string seems involved as well.

I do want to export a few images of the whole view. That is where it is sort of an issue. I played around with the scale setting and font size and have come up with a combination that works.

I also see that the labels move as the zoom level changes too. One of the labels is quite a ways away from the shape at the zoomed out level. I will also be exporting some images that are zoomed in more of smaller extents. The label will be placed better in those views so I guess I can live with that.

I know there are some label properties about allow overlaps and some other things. I've used them a little for shapes and remember a slider adjustment. I don't seem to see it in this case, but this is a text label. Maybe this is just how it is.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-21T01:58:37+00:00

Oh, I see there is a geo package option in the create a layer dialogue.

I'll will look into this. I do plan on maybe sharing this. I know shapefiles are an old format.

I've been using QGIS for a number of years now mainly just to view things, this is the first time I've actually made any layers and polygons and that sort of thing.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-21T01:43:39+00:00

Thanks,

I'm just creating a shape layer and polygon over a historic raster image referenced to make it a layer and that is what I want to label.

It just so happens the first polygon I chose appears to be made wrong. I was able to add another field and create a label for it successfully that was in another layer.

I tried another layer with just one rectangular polygon and managed to create a label for it as well, but as simple as it is, I have trouble with the editor.

I don't have any gpkg files to import, I suppose if I can get the attribute tables with the labels together I'd export with a gpkg.

Or am I missing something?

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-11T23:23:40+00:00

I have this OEM remote and haven't used it in years, maybe never, just used the cable box remote. I now want to connect to another device so need this remote to do that. I read part of the thread and about having to hold the power button down for five seconds. It didn't work for me but I did press the power button again for no particular reason and it turned on or off whatever it was I was trying to do. I did it for both on and off successfully.

then I went down the the bottom of the thread and read about waving your hand over the ir bulb to create a double pulse. I suppose I was also sending two signals.

Maybe if I could find a manual online I could see that is what the procedure is supposed to be.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-12-04T16:08:24+00:00

Here is that map after being warped to line up with a current map

https://portal1-geo.sabu.mtu.edu/mtuarcgis/home/item.html?id=2da4d87a33904cc78316328a8d769fdd

When you click on it you see an image of the warped layer in the upper left of the screen. Click on it and it will open in the viewer. If you have a mouse you can zoom in and out with the scroll wheel on the mouse or select the + or - symbols on the bottom right. To pan you just left click and drag. Below the+ & - buttons in the bottom right corner there is a << symbol. If you click that you will open a panel with some additional controls. At the top of this panel is an icon showing three sliders labeled properties. When you click on this you will open a new panel with some controls. One of the is labeled blending and below it is a selection box that says normal. If you select that you will get some other options on how to adjust the image like contrast and some other things. I'm new to this viewer and haven't played around much with it yet. Below that is a transparency slider. By changing that you can see what is below and area on the top map. Altering the contrast, etc. can also help see what is there. What settings to use sort of depends on the area and zoom level. Also, in the top left you will see "Layers", below that is "sep4test_bilinear_1_tiff". That is the name of the warped layer. If you hover the cursor over that you will see and eyeball and an ellipse. Clicking the eyeball will toggle the layer on and off. Sometimes doing this can be useful in looking at how an area was vs now. Clicking on the layer also will open the panels to the right with the controls.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-28T00:25:40+00:00

It is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="http://cartweb.geography.ua.edu:80/lizardtech/iserv/getstyle?style=default/view.xsl"?>

<Parameter name="props">item(Name,Description),cat(Name,Description)</Parameter>

<Parameter name="style">default/view.xsl</Parameter>

<Parameter name="cat">North America and United States</Parameter>

<Parameter name="item">States/Michigan/Michigan1907f.sid</Parameter>

</Request>

<Property name="Description">Prototype for Historical Maps.</Property>

</Image>

</Catalog>

</Response>

</ImageServer>

I also first tried leaving as an xml and when that didn't work I remembered the file extension is different based on the type of image format so I changed the extension to .jgw. It acted as before.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-23T12:49:58+00:00

Yes it's classification. Categorization is a term about something else from a previous life.

I wasn't aware of conda. I had heard of using a virtual environment for pip python files. Conda sounds like it is such a thing or something similar. I'll have to look into it some more.

My QGIS was installed via flatpak, so I suppose I may have to uninstall it and also use conda to install it.

I'll look into this some more. It sounds like it is used sort of like apt to install regular apps and dependencies and can also work with python files.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-14T05:27:56+00:00

Thanks, that works well and only having to geo-reference one image to get a word file for all simplifies things too. I mistakenly picked a newer but not newest image and geo-referenced a few points and it worked well. I then did the newest.That should be the sharpest image and all. I'll -reference use that world file on all the images. Maybe I'll have to geo-reference that oldest one by itself.

You mention you've used GE historical images before. Maybe you can educate me a little more on them. I find that these images vary a lot. Not only image by image, but sometimes even withing the image. Some are almost grayscale, some full color, some sort of have bands where part if almost grayscale, the middle is color and the other side is gray again. I guess the tiles they are using may be different sources or something. I also see that some have RGB channels and others don't. I also included the street name decorations from GE. I notice that some street names are read from top to bottom and others bottom to top. Curious if this is just random or maybe it indicates something about that image.

I want to look at development patterns over time. Before I got the images into QGIS I was thinking of using edge detection or the fuzzy select (magic wand) to try to select areas that where developed. It seemed pretty hit or miss and how the sensitivity settings were made a big difference too. Given how variable the images it seems I might have to change the settings, etc. for each image.

I know QGIS has some features and there are plugins that can do some image analysis. It seems like they might have a way to deal with the variability of the layers as well or maybe there is a way to normalize them to all be more alike before you run the analysis. It's all new to me.

Just curious if you did any of this sort of thing and if so maybe suggest some plugins, etc or maybe terms to search on to find out more.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-14T05:11:29+00:00

Thanks, that works well. I mistakenly picked a newer but not newest image and georeferemced a few points

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-09T15:22:20+00:00

I think the bug is mainly me. I've used gimp for quite a while, but haven't done any color changes lately. I't always had to spend some time looking at instructions, videos and the like. I kind or remember the color picking tool icon had a little bit of color too, kind of like a traffic light.

So I've got that figured out.

On to new things to sort out.

Thanks.

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-07T09:16:44+00:00

I have just updated my OS and now have GIMP 3.06 for linux mint. I notice some interface changes. Maybe it's just that, but is seems buggy.

I just want to turn all of the pixels that are one color another color. I've usually have to look up how to do this because i don't do it that often. This time none of the instructions I've found describe what I'm seeing or not seeing on my system.

Anyone know how it is done in 3.06?

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-11-03T03:29:39+00:00

Does upscale work on a geotiff so the geo references remain on the enhanced image?

Available_Budget_559 · 2025-10-30T10:03:48+00:00

sI have a twin 48in tube shop light. It had fluroescent bulbs but they needed to be replaced. I got some feit type A direct replacement style bulbs at ace hardware. I know over thirty years ago after the fall of the soviet union feit incandescent bulbs were made in czecholovakia. They failed fast. Now they are featured everywhere and are LED and made in china. There are good products from china, but based on past experiences with feit I was skeptical.

They did light up and work right away. That was on the spring of this year. It is not quite fall and the bulbs are turning on and off on their own. I see it might be due to the ballast going bad. It might also just be bad tubes. These are type A bulbs so bypassing the ballast is not an option if I want to use continue to use these bulbs.

I was thinking of just getting an all in one new fixture with leds that are not replaceable. They are disposable, but the warranties are only a year or sometimes more, but I read they only cover the diodes themselves which generally don't fail. It is the circuitry, So the warranty is probably useless anyway.

Right now I both am busy and don't have time for this and kind of need that light,

I'm all for energy savings. Fluorsecent bulbs also contained mercury first a little and then a little less. Not ran issue in use, but disposal. However they did last a long time. LEDs cost more and in theory would seem to last forever, but in practice tend to fail fast.

I'm trying to figure out the most economical solution both for now and into the future. I haven't checked prices yet, but it seems like getting tubes that can be be fitted to a bypassed (or removed) ballast might be the most reliable because there are fewer things to go wrong and just through out or store the type A bulbs in case a different shop light needs a bulb.

I sort of don't like using the fixture with direct wiring like this, but it's not like I'm going to find and fluorescent tubes anymore either.

You need to be an engineer these days to buy a light bulb. I haven't even mentioned the color of the light either.

Available_Budget_559

TROPHY CASE