🚀 go-pugleaf

Dear Net Readers:

As many people requested, I post my proposal again in order to supply
details to the interested people.  Please simply ignore it if you have
already read it before. 


Xinhang Shen

 




 A Multiple Usage Area Coding System -- The Natural Area Coding System 
                      by Xinhang Shen

OBJECTIVE:                
*    To create a geocode system for all purposes in the world, such as: 
     usedd as a global postal code system, an efficient location system
     for emergency agents, a standard map grid system, and so on, since 
     it is extremely inconvenient for people using different systems to 
     communicate with each other so as to result in many losses of life
     and property.  It is impossible for people to remember all the 
     geocodes of their addresses in different systems.


This proposal provides a natural area coding system based upon the 
natural coordinates of longitude and latitude on the earth.  The system 
comprises a character string of four characters for the longitude and a 
second character string of four characters for the latitude of a 
particular location.  Each of the characters in each of the strings is 
selected from a character set consisting of digits 0 to 9 and all 
consonant English capital letters.  The major usages and advantages of 
the system are listed as follows:  

     1.  The system can be used as a standard global postal code system. 
It can unify the world postal code systems and eliminate all the 
inconveniences caused by the differences in postal code systems in 
different countries, such as international mails are still sorted 
manually at least at the point of mailing.  Furthermore, since at the 
point of mailing people do not have much idea about the location of an 
address, an international mail may not be transported to the address in 
the most efficient manner possible, as they may be sent to the central 
location of the country first and then transported to the address from 
that point while this is usually not the most efficient transportation 
and delivery of mails.  Since the natural area code is based on the 
longitude and latitude of the earth and have a reasonable number of 
characters, it is easily recognized and processed by computerized sorting
machines so that both the national and international mails can be sorted 
automatically and sent through the optimized transportation routes from 
the mailing point to the final address.  

     2. The code can describe the address of a location very accurately. 
Although a natural area code has only eight characters, each area less 
than 50 meters in longitudinal direction and 25 meters in latitudinal 
direction on the earth can have its unique code, i.e. almost each house 
on the earth can have its unique code.  

     3.  The code is permanently attached to the area and will never 
change.  This property can save a lot of work and cost for the postal 
corporations to realign the boundaries of postal areas, to publish new 
postal area atlas and books, and to assign new codes to the people as 
new areas are developed within a country, and possibly to introduce 
another completely new coding system once the capacity of a particular 
system is reached. 

     4.  The code is given by the nature and need not be assigned by the 
postal corporations.  Each code can be obtained from the longitude and 
latitude of a location measured by a system called GPS or directly read i
from a map with the natural area code grid lines printed thereon.  This 
property can help people to save a lot of time to wait for the assignment
of the code by a post corporation.  

     5.  The system can be used as a standard map grid system. It can be 
used as an ideal map grid system which can help people to locate streets 
and addresses conveniently and efficiently without the need to look up 
the street v.s. grid line correspondence table which is presently widely 
used for city maps, and have much higher accuracy than the existing grid 
systems, since once the system is widely used, people will always give 
their addresses together with the natural area codes. This standard grid
system for maps can eliminate all the inconsistencies of grid systems 
presently printed on the maps from the world maps to local area maps and 
help people to relate these maps.  Maps with the natural area code grid 
lines can also be used for people to find the code of a specific address.  

     6. The code can be used to speed all the emergency services. Since 
the code can be used as postal code, all people in the world will manage 
to remember their codes.  It is extremely helpful for people to 
inform emergency services with the code when some fires, crimes, and 
serious deceases happen, so that emergency agents can locate the exact 
address both in cities and rural areas from maps immediately and the 
saved time may save life and property. If the code is marked along 
highways especially in rural areas, people can report traffic accidents 
happened in the highways to the emergency agents with the code, which can
save a lot of time for the emergency agents to find and reach the 
location of the accidents and prevent all unnecessary loss of life.  

     7.  The code can also be very useful for other people.  Individual 
persons, taxi drivers, and delivery agents can use the code to find an 
address conveniently and efficiently because the natural area code is 
designed for all people but not specificly for post offices like the 
existing postal codes which are designed only for post corporations.
The natural area code can be used by everybody in the world directly.  

     8.  The code can be easily remembered.  The multiple usage, frequent
referring, and clear meaning as well as the reasonable length of the code
make people easily to remember it.  

     9.  The code can be used for governments.  Governments can use the 
code to get statistical data about the mail distribution which usually
represents the degree of the development of an area and figure out many 
other important information derived from the mail distribution.  

     10.  The code can help people to establish the global idea.  The 
code can be used to calculate the distances and time differences between 
two locations anywhere in the world and determine their climate and 
seasons at a specific time, as well as the length of day time, etc, 
since the code supplies the complete information of an address.  
 
     11.  The natural area coding system is self-motivated.  People all 
over the world can start to use the code immediately without the need of 
any official initiations and their mails may be sent much faster if they
include the codes in their addresses because some post corporations may 
have started using the system.  All the postal corporations in the world 
can start to use the code to sort mails individually once their computers
and mail sorting systems have been installed or programmed using this
very simple coding system, which can save a lot of time and money for
the world to establish an international agreement on it.  

     12.  The natural area code can be used as common languages to refer
locations, such as: when two emergency agents communicate with each
other, the code can be used to refer a location in the phone which will
be much more accurate and efficient than any common languages; when
government is going to build or measure something in mountains, oceans or
deserts where there are no names given to small areas, the natural area
code will be the best way to express them.  

     13.  The implementation of this coding system needs very low cost:  
neither governments nor post corporations need to invest any money to 
start using the code, but save money from avoiding revising and printing
traditional postal atlases and sending mails through optimized routes.  
What they are required to do is simply to inform and explain the system 
to people and install softwares which can recognise the natural area codes,
translate them into countries, cities or existing postal codes, and
optimize the transport routes.  

     14.  The natural area coding system can expand the map and software 
industries: The map publishers can use the natural area code grid system 
as the street finder by printing it on their existing maps, which not only
keeps all the original usages of the maps but adds lots of new functions
to them, such as: improving the convenience and accuracy of the street 
finder, using as a global postal code atlas, etc; so the maps will become
much more attractive and useful to people than the original ones.  Software
companies can produce various computer sorting softwares based on the
natural area coding system for post corporations, express delivers, 
transport companies, etc. 

     The natural area code is usually expressed by eight characters. Each
of the characters is picked up from the character set consisting of 
digits 0-9 and 20 consonant English capital letters and represents an 
integer ranging from 0 to 29.  The correspondences between the natural 
area code characters and integers are shown in the following table. 

     Table of NAC Character and Integer Correspondences 
=======================================================================
|| Character | Integer || Character | Integer || Character | Integer || 
||-----------|---------||-----------|---------||-----------|---------||
||    0      |    0    ||     B     |   10    ||     N     |    20   || 
||    1      |    1    ||     C     |   11    ||     P     |    21   || 
||    2      |    2    ||     D     |   12    ||     Q     |    22   || 
||    3      |    3    ||     F     |   13    ||     R     |    23   || 
||    4      |    4    ||     G     |   14    ||     S     |    24   || 
||    5      |    5    ||     H     |   15    ||     T     |    25   || 
||    6      |    6    ||     J     |   16    ||     V     |    26   || 
||    7      |    7    ||     K     |   17    ||     W     |    27   || 
||    8      |    8    ||     L     |   18    ||     X     |    28   || 
||    9      |    9    ||     M     |   19    ||     Z     |    29   ||
=======================================================================

     When the longitude and latitude of a location on the earth are 
known, the corresponding natural area code can be obtained as follows: 
     
     LONG = 30^4 *( Longitude + 180 ) / 360
     x1 = Integer part of ( LONG / 30^3 )
     x2 = Integer part of ((LONG - x1 * 30^3 ) / 30^2 )
     x3 = Integer part of ((LONG - x1 * 30^3 - x2 * 30^2 ) / 30 )
     x4 = Integer part of ( LONG - x1 * 30^3 - x2 * 30^2 - x3 * 30)
     
     LAT = 30^4 *( Latitude + 90 ) / 180
     y1 = Integer part of ( LAT / 30^3 )
     y2 = Integer part of ((LAT - y1 * 30^3 ) / 30^2 )
     y3 = Integer part of ((LAT - y1 * 30^3 - y2 * 30^2 ) / 30 )
     y4 = Integer part of ( LAT - y1 * 30^3 - y2 * 30^2 - y3 * 30) 

where Longitude East is treated to be positive but Longitude West to be 
negative; Latitude North is positive but Latitude South is negative; both
Longitude and Latitude are in degrees with decimals; symbol * represents
multiplication sign; symbol ^ is the function of power; x1, x2, x3, x4, 
y1, y2, y3, y4 are integers ranging from 0 to 29 here.  Once x1, x2, x3, 
x4, y1, y2, y3, y4 are calculated, using the Table of Character and Integer
Correspondences, the corresponding characters X1, X2, X3, X4, Y1, Y2, Y3, 
Y4 can be obtained and the natural area code of the location can be written
as follows: 

                    X1X2X3X4 Y1Y2Y3Y4

    Note that the first four characters represent the longitude of the
location, and the rest four characters represent its latitude, and a 
blank space must be put between these two parts. 
  
    When you put a natural area code together with an address on the 
envelope of a letter, you should place it in an extra line after the 
bottom of the address starting with " NAC: ", such as: 

               Xinhang Shen
               50 Stephanie Street, APT 509
               Toronto, ON M5T 1B3
               Canada
               NAC:  8CHD Q87M 

which will not change the present address and postal coding systems used 
in different countries but add extra information to help post 
corporations to sort and optimize international mails and their 
transportation. Once the system has been widely known and used, post 
corporations may gradually give up their national postal code systems and
use the natural area code only.

    If a location has a longitude equal to Longitude West 79.3333 degrees
and a latitude equal to Latitude North 43.65 degrees, its natural area 
code can be determined as follows:  

 LONG = 30^4 * (Longitude + 180 ) / 360
      = 810000 * ( -79.3333 + 180 ) / 360) = 226500.1 
 x1   = Integer part of ( LONG / 30^3 ) = 8 = 8 
 x2   = Integer part of ((LONG - x1 * 30^3 ) / 30^2 ) = 11 = C 
 x3   = Integer part of ((LONG - x1 * 30^3 - x2 * 30^2 )/30 ) = 20 = N
 x4   = Integer part of ( LONG - x1 * 30^3 - x2 * 30^2 - x3 * 30) = 0 = 0

 LAT  = 30^4 *( Latitude + 90 ) / 180 
      = 810000 * ( 43.65 + 90 ) / 180 ) = 601425 
 y1   = Integer part of ( LAT / 30^3 ) = 22 = Q 
 y2   = Integer part of ((LAT - y1 * 30^3 ) / 30^2 ) = 8 = 8 
 y3   = Integer part of ((LAT - y1 * 30^3 - y2 * 30^2 )/ 3 ) = 7 = 7 
 y4   = Integer part of ( LAT - y1 * 30^3 - y2 * 30^2 - y3 * 30 =15 = H

     Therefore, the natural area code of the location is 8CN0 Q87H.

     It is not always that both the longitude and latitude of a location 
are known exactly.  If only approximate Longitude and Latitude of an 
address are known or it is not necessary to use such a high accuracy of 
eight characters to express a location, for example, a location near the 
poles, the last one or two characters of the longitudinal or latitudinal 
string of a code can be omitted and the code may look like these:
 
  X1X2 Y1Y2Y3, X1X2X3 Y1Y2, X1X2X3 Y1Y2Y3, X1X2X3 Y1Y2Y3Y4, or X1X2 Y1Y2 

but the first two characters are not allowed to be omitted, even if they 
are zeros. If only an approximate Longitude or Latitude is known, a 
natural area code can still be used but with fewer characters.  These 
shorter codes are still of useful information and much better than 
nothing.  If there is an uncertainty, Er, in degrees with decimals, 
about the longitude or latitude of a location, you can determine how 
many correct characters can be used in the natural area code as shown in 
the following: 

 ER = 30^4 * Er / 360 for Longitude, OR ER = 30^4 * Er / 180 for Latitude
 If ER < 1, then all the four characters are correct; 
 If 1 < ER < 30, then the first three characters are correct; 
 If 30 < ER < 900, then the first two characters are correct; 
 If 900 < ER < 27000, then only the first one character is correct; 
 If ER > 27000, then none of them is correct.  

    Sometimes, people still feel that the 50 meters by 25 meters is too 
big area to locate a specific door of a building, it is allowed for 
people to add an extra character to the longitude part or latitude part 
or both in order to specify the exact location of a specific door, i.e., 
the natural area code can also be of 9 or 10 characters as:
 
  X1X2X3X4X5 Y1Y2Y3Y4Y5, X1X2X3X4X5 Y1Y2Y3Y4, or X1X2X3X4 Y1Y2Y3Y4Y5
    
     A natural area code is a condensed form to express the longitude and
latitude of an address. They can be converted to each other easily.  When
the natural area code of an address is known to be X1X2X3X4 Y1Y2Y3Y4, 
you can calculate the longitude and latitude of the address as follows: 

     First translate all the characters of the code into the 
corresponding integers x1, x2, x3, x4, y1, y2, y3, y4 according to the 
Table of Character and Integer Correspondences; 

     Then the longitude and latitude can be calculated by the following
formula: 
 Longitude = ( x1 * 30^3 + x2 * 30^2 + x3 * 30 + x4 ) * 360 / 30^4 - 180
 Latitude  = ( y1 * 30^3 + y2 * 30^2 + y3 * 30 + y4 ) * 180 / 30^4 - 90
     
If the longitude is positive, it is Longitude East, otherwise Longitude 
West; if the latitude is positive, it is Latitude North, otherwise 
Latitude South.
 
     If you have got the natural area code of an address:  FFJ5 P9T4, you
can calculate the longitude and latitude of the address as follows: 

 Longitude = ( F * 30^3 + F * 30^2 + J * 30 + 5 ) * 360 / 30^4 - 180
           = ( 13*27000 + 13*900 + 16*30 + 5 )*360/810000-180 = -18.5844
 Latitude  = ( P * 30^3 + 9 * 30^2 + T * 30 + 4 ) * 180 / 30^4 - 90
           = ( 21*27000+9*900+25*30+4 )*180/810000-90 = 37.96756

     That is, the location is at Longitude West 18.5844 degrees and 
Latitude North 37.96756 degrees. 

     Since the natural area code of a location has the complete 
information about the location, we can use it to calculate the distance 
from one location to another location.  Let A1A2A3A4 B1B2B3B4 
and C1C2C3C4 D1D2D3D4 to express the natural area codes of two locations,
the procedure to calculate the distance between them is as follows: 

  1. Converting all the characters of the codes into integers a1, a2, a3,
a4, b1, b2, b3, b4 based on the Table of Character and Integer 
Correspondences;

  2. Calculating their corresponding longitudes and latitudes: a, b and 
c,d, as shown above; 
  
  3. The distance S between them then can be calculated by the formula: 

    S = R*Arccos(cosb*cosa*cosd*cosc+cosb*sina*cosd*sinc+sinb*sind)

where R is the radius of the earth equal to 6376.47 km near the equator,
6355.55 km near the poles and 6366 km in average, and Arccos, sin, cos
are triangular functions, and the unit of Arccos is Radian ranging from 
0 to pi(=3.14) while the unit of functions: sin and cos are degree. 

     The natural area codes can also be used to determine the local 
natural time difference between two locations. Let A1A2A3A4 B1B2B3B4 and 
C1C2C3C4 D1D2D3D4 to express the natural area codes of two locations, 
and the procedure of the calculation is shown in the following: 

     1. Converting all the characters in the longitudinal parts of the 
codes into integers a1, a2, a3, a4, c1, c2, c3, c4 based on the Table of
Character and Integer Correspondences; 

     2. Calculating their corresponding longitudes:  a and c, as shown 
above;
 
     3. The local natural time difference between these two locations is

                     DT = ( a - c ) * 24 / 360 ( hours )

where the positive value means the location with longitude a has the day
starting DT hours earlier than the location with longitude c, and the
negative value means the opposite. 

     Since the natural area code represents the absolute location of an
address on the earth, people can use it to find any location on the world
map. If the location close to the equator, the weather there is usually 
mild without big changes both in temperature and length of day time all 
the year around.  If a location is close to the poles, the changes in 
temperature and length of day time is huge. During the winter, it is 
always very cold and dark with short or without day time, while during 
the summer, it is always of long day time and mild temperature or without
night at all.  If the location is on the southern hemisphere, its winter 
is during the summer time of the northern hemisphere, and its summer is 
during the winter time of the northern hemisphere. 
     
     Map publishers can add the natural area code grid lines to their 
existing maps as follows: 

   i) Divide the 360 degrees of longitude and 180 degrees of latitude of
the earth into 30 divisions respectively, and assign one character to 
each corresponding division of both longitude and latitude with the 
origin at Longitude West 180 and Latitude South 90 respectively and the 
increasing direction pointing to the east in longitude and to the north 
in latitude, as the first character of the longitude character string and
latitude character string of the code respectively. 

   ii) Divide each division from stage i) into 30 divisions and assign 
one character to each resulted division as the second character of both 
longitude and latitude character string respectively. 
     
   iii) Divide each division from stage ii) into 30 divisions and assign 
one character to each division as the third character of both longitude 
and latitude character string of the code respectively. 
   
   iv) Divide each division from stage iii) into 30 divisions and assign
one character to each division as the forth character of both longitude 
and latitude string of the code respectively.  

That is, the natural area code grid is like Cartesian grid which can be 
easily formed and printed to the existing maps with little extra cost. 

      Software companies can help post corporations to program sorting 
codes based on this system, which may translate the natural area codes to
the countries, provinces, cities or the existing postal codes in their 
own country for the national mails, and optimize the transport routes of 
the mails.  There will be a large market of these codes if the system is 
universally accepted.

     As many people questioned, a postal code should also include the 
information about the altitude or floor number, room number or box number
which can help post offices to sort mails for very dense mail buildings.
It is allowed to add these information to a natural area code as the third
string separated by a blank space, which will be used only for local post 
offices and ignored by all other post offices.  This part is called local 
defined string.

     This invention is a simple idea but a very useful idea which can
significantly benefit all the people in the world.  I am very desirous to
make the code to be used worldwide as early as possible so that it can 
benefit all the people in the world early and to avoid many unnecessary 
loss of life and property due to the slow emergency services.  I would 
like to thank all the people who are going to contribute to the promotion
of the system. 

     You are welcome to discuss, suggest, and criticize this system by 
contacting me through the following address:
 
               Xinhang Shen
               50 Stephanie Street, APT 509
               Toronto, ON M5T 1B3
               Canada
               NAC:  8CHD Q87M
              
               E-mail: shen@flow.chem-eng.utoronto.ca