Swimming Cycling Running - Share ///your.three.words

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04-30-2019 05:08 AM
GeeFernando
Occasional Contributor
10 3 1,309

///swimming.cycling.running. Is it a triathlon or a 3m x 3m grid reference - somewhere in New South Wales, Australia?

WHAT3WORDS is a really simple way to talk about location. The world has been divided into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address. It means anyone can accurately find any location and share it more quickly, easily and with less ambiguity than any other system.

And thanks to what3words' free API and some of Survey123's new functionalities (Dynamic Labels and JavaScript Functions), I was able to develop a simple app to share ///your.three.words with a recipient of your choice.

Click below to watch the app in action.

Whether you are responding to emergencies or navigating uncharted territory; what3words can help you.

If you're interested in further developing this solution please download the files attached. And be sure to share how it helped your business in the comments below.

Cheers! - Gee

UPDATE - Reverse Geocoding using Survey123

Since writing this report, it was brought to my attention that the above procedure could be simplified by using Survey123's Reverse Geocoding feature. Steps to get this working are outlined below;

  1. Get what3words API key
  2. Once you have an API key - request for ArcGIS access
  3. Once you receive your password - add the following service to your portal - https://arcgis.what3words.com/w3w/rest/services/what3words_EN_English/GeocodeServer
    1. refer to this post for - how to connect to secure services
  4. Give the geocoder item's URL to one of the admins to add it as a Geocoder to your organization
  5. Write a similar expression in xls form's calulation field - which will return - what3words' location as a JSON object
    pulldata("@geopoint",${location},"reversegeocode","geocoder item's URL")‍‍‍‍‍‍‍
    1. Refer to this blog post - for more details around reverse Geocoding in Survey123
3 Comments
LiamHarrington-Missin
Occasional Contributor II

Thanks for sharing

ShanonLoughton
Esri Contributor

Interesting. Can you improve the survey to :

1. allow typing in a w3w address to find a location?

2. have the email's captured w3w address string to be a link too, to some browser w3w web map?

GeeFernando
Occasional Contributor

Thanks for the suggestions. And yes, these can definitely be deployed 

  1. I used Custom pulldata() JavaScript Functions for this solution. This may not be the best solution for finding co-ordinates from an address. As it doesn't support autocomplete as you start typing. It only looks for a match after you've typed the three words. This means - if there isn't an one to one match - it won't work.
    https://api.what3words.com/v3/convert-to-coordinates?words=your.three.words&key=[API-KEY]
    

    But, using the what3words Locator from ArcGIS Marketplace and adding it as a Geo-coder will get around this issue (which I'm yet to try).

  2. This can be done by replacing the highlighted font with your own ${threeWordsStringVariable} (using dynamic labels) - https://map.what3words.com/swimming.cycling.running