I'm looking for mapping/postcode plotting software

[Andrew_Rossington]

Hello. I would be very greatful if someone could point me in the right direction.

At work we currently use AFD's Postcode Plotter (we have a database of centres throughout the country, and sometimes need to find the closest one to a specific postcode) however I was wondering if anyone knew of anything else along the lines of Google Maps that could be integrated with an our access database to produce the same solution... but cheaper!

Many thanks for any help you can give.
<!-- / message -->
(I'll post this in the general questions thread in case it's in the wrong place)

 

[Joe4]

What does this have to do with Access? Are you looking for something that integrates with Access?

 

[Andrew_Rossington]

What does this have to do with Access? Are you looking for something that integrates with Access?

A table of data in Access would be the main data source, with which we'd wish to populate a map on which each record would be plotted individually.
Then we'd like the ability to search, by postcode, for the nearest records.

AFD does this, but it's mapping abilities are limited, and the ability to label each record on the map is minimal.

If you know of anything that does this, I'd appreciate a reply.

Thanks.

 

[Binraider]

For what you are looking for it's going to cost an arm and a leg to get that kind of functionality... Royal Mail will provide raw postcode data - at significant cost. After that there are lots of websites, etc. that as you say integrate with Google Maps, Multimap, etc. - no doubt with large licensing and development costs!

Do have to use the full postcode or could you just get away with a rough area code i.e. just using the first half of the postcode - you could probably compile regional list yourself. Guess it depends on how detailed you want it, and what budget you want to go for.

From personal experience working with postcodes; a regional approximation is often better than trying to get a specific code. Many new build properties don't make their way into the Royal Mail's database "immediately" and you end up with no match at all.

 

[Andrew_Rossington]

For what you are looking for it's going to cost an arm and a leg to get that kind of functionality... Royal Mail will provide raw postcode data - at significant cost. After that there are lots of websites, etc. that as you say integrate with Google Maps, Multimap, etc. - no doubt with large licensing and development costs!

Do have to use the full postcode or could you just get away with a rough area code i.e. just using the first half of the postcode - you could probably compile regional list yourself. Guess it depends on how detailed you want it, and what budget you want to go for.

From personal experience working with postcodes; a regional approximation is often better than trying to get a specific code. Many new build properties don't make their way into the Royal Mail's database "immediately" and you end up with no match at all.

I'll continue searching, as we need detailed postcode searches.

Thanks for the response though.

 

[R-T-C Tim]

Hey, I just found this post/forum through Google. Did you ever find a solution?

We use an application at work called PostcodeAnalyst which isn't free but it does import data straight from MS Access and plot them onto maps of GB and let you fiddle about with them, export as jpegs etc. It is all on the desktop so no Google et. al. interaction.

The website is: www.graticule.com

If anyone knows of any other (free ) applications that can do this I'd be very interested to find out!