Massive area of updated Aerial Imagery and other Digimap dataset updates in March/April 2017

Aerial Digimap updates March/April 2017 has been a busy couple of months for the Data Team who have been working hard to process a huge area of updated aerial imagery data from the data supplier, Getmapping. The update consists of around 80,000 individual 1km tiles, all captured in 2015, which is approximately 30% of the country. […]

Digimap dataset updates: January-February 2017

We have updated a number of key datasets in Jan/Feb 2017 in the Ordnance Survey collection of Digimap. These updates bring the datasets available from Digimap inline with the latest versions published by Ordnance Survey. Of particular note are the updates to the two most detailed mapping products available from Ordnance Survey: OS MasterMap Topography […]

OS Open Map – Local added to Roam

OS Open Map – Local (OML) was recently added to the Digimap Roam application, giving users the ability to create maps online with a detailed, vector open dataset. OML is the most detailed vector mapping product available from Ordnance Survey as Open Data. We have added this dataset to the following map views in Digimap […]

Dataset updates Summer 2016

A number of datasets available through the Ordnance Survey collection in Digimap have been updated over the summer as show in the tables below. OS Data Download: Product Name OS Publication Date OS MasterMap Topography Layer June 2016 OS VectorMap Local Raster July 2016 OS Terrain 5 (DTM) July 2016 OS Terrain 5 (Contours) July 2016 OS […]

Digimap Dataset Updates: May 2016

VectorMap Local Raster

Latest version of OS VectorMap Local Raster

A number of datasets in the Ordnance Survey Collection have been updated in May this year. We’ve also made a number of improvements to some of the datasets that are popular for 3D modelling which will hopefully make it easier to use these datasets in CAD applications. The main changes are:

  • OS MasterMap Sites Layer now available in DWG and ESRI Shapefile format (previously it was only available in GML)
  • OS Terrain 5 DTM is now available in XYZ format for use in CAD applications
  • OS Terrain 5 Contours in DWG format are now provided as as 3D contours with the height of each feature set to the correct contour height

The data format help page has been updated to reflect these changes and is a good place to go if you are interested to see which datasets are available in a specific format.

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Boundary-Line updated with different County Boundaries

The latest version of Ordnance Survey’s Boundary-Line data contains two new layers, Ceremonial Counties and Historical Counties.

Ceremonial Counties

OS Boundary-Line Ceremonial CountiesThis new layer in the Boundary-Line data represents the areas of England, Scotland and Wales that are represented by a Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant is the chief officer of the county and representative of the Crown; whenever the Queen visits an area she will be accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant.

This layer is very useful for those who want to make a map of Great Britain divided into its counties without all the complexities of Unitary Authorities, Districts and Boroughs. This is the layer to choose when making a map showing a more traditional view of Great Britain without making a historical view.

Historical Counties

OS Boundary-Line Historical CountiesThe historic counties dataset shows the county boundaries in place in 1888 in England and Wales and 1899 in Scotland. The boundaries for England and Wales were derived from mapping  from the National Archives  dating from 1890. The Scottish boundaries are derived from maps as late as 1940.

This layer is very useful for those studying this time period and when combined with the ceremonial counties and modern the most up to date boundaries gives a good picture of how fluid the boundaries are over time.

Selecting Layers in Data Download

If you have the Boundary-Line data you need already but would like to add the new layers without downloading it all again then follow this useful tip. Once you have added the product to your basket click on the arrow in the layers column to pick and choose those that you want to take. See the image below:

Selecting Layers from Data Download

You will then just receive these new layers and not all the others which you may already have or not need.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this or any other aspect of the service:

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk
  • Phone: 0131 650 3302

New OS OpenData added to Digimap Data Download

Ordnance Survey’s most detailed open data product, Open Map – Local,  is now available to download from the Digimap service along with the OS Open Names gazetteer, OS Open Rivers water network and OS Open Roads road network. There are no restrictions on what the data can be used for,  it just needs to carry a simple copyright acknowledgement:

Contains OS data © Crown copyright [and database right] (year)

Sample Image of OS Open Map - LocalOpen Map – Local

This is a vector dataset best viewed at a scale of 1:10,000, with layers including buildings, roads, sites, railways, hydrology, coastline, woodland and cartographic text. The data comes in Shapefile format for easy access in the most commonly used GIS software.

The data isn’t quite as feature rich as the licensed VectorMap Local data, though it does contain some nice additions such as the ability to highlight public buildings and their grounds.

Sample Image of OS Open NamesOS Open Names

This is a gazetteer with 2.5 million entries, made up of over 870,000 named and numbered roads, nearly 44,000 settlements and over 1.6 million postcodes. This dataset is billed as the comprehensive list of Great Britain’s place names, road names and numbers and postcodes, and is certainly the most detailed gazetteer in Digimap. The data is available in CSV or GML formats.

Sample Image of OS Open RiversOS Open Rivers

This is a generalised network view of the rivers of Great Britain. The data is designed to give its users a high-level view of where the water flows across the land surface.  Though it doesn’t show the detail of the actual width or shape of the river as the topographic data it is a proper network. This means it doesn’t get interrupted by bridges or other features that prevent the topographic data from being used to “route” water through the river network. The data is available in Shapefile and GML formats.

Sample Image of OS Open RoadsOS Open Roads

Like OS Open Rivers this is a generalised network of roads. Topographic data will provide more detail about the road dimensions and real world position, however this data provides an uninterrupted network for road routing analysis. The data is available in Shapefile and GML formats.

 

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EDINA Geoforum 2013 Review

Geoforum 2013EDINA’s Geoforum 2013 was a great success with over 50 academic and support staff attending four very well received presentations:

Geoforum aims to bring together staff who support the use of Digimap and other geoservices from subscribing institutions around the country and showcase what’s new and upcoming from EDINA. It also gives people an opportunity to ask the Digimap team questions and to chat with others about how support and promote geoservices.

There was a live blog running throughout the day which is still available for you to read and find out what happened.

Keynote Address

The keynote was delivered by Shelley Mosco of The University of Greenwich and was titled: Digimap Data and a non-traditionalist approach.  Shelley is a member of the The School of Architecture, Design and Construction and  described the ways in which spatial data could be used to inform design. Shelley was keen to stress the importance of spatial data and GIS in the implementation of Building Information Models (BIMs).  BIMs have been used in large engineering projects for some time, however the government is making them mandatory for all publicly funded building projects in England and Wales. This means that commercial organisations will be looking for students to have been trained in the concept of BIMs and the software that drives them.  You can find out more about BIMs through the following links:

Geofurum 2013 keynote

Two of Shelley’s current MSc students also gave brief overviews of their experiences of learning about GIS and using spatial data in their projects.  Both David Parfitt and Robert Park were self-confessed GIS newbies, but they managed to get data from Digimap and use it in their conservation projects. The data allowed them to visualise and analyse the environment and provide evidence to support their proposed designs.  Their demo’s were excellent a they really showed the power of simple GIS analysis.

You can view the slides from this presentation here:

Slideshare Shelley Mosco Presentation at Geoforum 2013Digimap Data and a non-traditionalist approach – Shelley Mosco

Open and “Free” Geo Software & Data

After the Keynote was a presentation that focused on Open or “Free” resources for geospatial teaching and research. The presentation looked at  software, web-mapping and data. The main resources are listed below:

Data

  • OS Open data is available through the Digimap Data Download service.
  • ShareGeo Open is a repository for open geospatial data. It has lots of useful and interesting datasets on a variety of subjects such as wind farms, crime, boundaries and DTMs
  • Data.gov.uk – the UK government’s open data store

Software

  • QGIS – one of the best open source GIS out there. Lots of functionality and plugins that allow you to perform complex spatial analysis. It is also well supported by forums.
  • gvSIG – anther fully functioning GIS.
  • GRASS – a remote sensing package aimed at serious remote sensor’s. If you are a newbie to remote sensing, you can access GRASS tool through the GRASS plugin for QGIS which makes things really simple.

Web-mapping

Digimap is a great web mapping tool, but how can you create your own interactive web map for your website?

  • MapBox – simple intuitive web site that helps users build interactive web maps. Basic functionality is free, more advanced functions are available for a small fee.
  • Leaflet – the engine behind MapBox, it is free but requires user to do a “bit” of programing
  • Openlayers – an alternative to Leaflet which is more flexible. Openlayers powers Digimap. Requires a fair amount of programming knowledge.
  • MapServer – implements Openlayers for enterprise scale operations. MapServer is also used for Digimap services.

You can view the slides from this presentation on slideshare here:

OpenSourceOpen & “Free” Geo Software & Data – Tom Armitage

EDINA Geoservices Review

After lunch the lead of EDINA’s geoservices Support team, Emma Diffley, shared what we have been busy working on.

Interfaces

Digimap is being streamlined, each collection will eventually have just a Roam and a Download. These interfaces will all look and work in a very similar way. The aim is to make the service more consistent and easier to use, but also much easier to maintain.

EDINA will be withdrawing Digimap Carto on 31st July 2013. Carto, launched in 1996, is harder and harder to maintain, so we have taken the best bits and put them into Roam.

On top of the Carto functionality already added to Roam the following improvements are coming soon:

  • an improved way of saving and opening maps and annotations
  • a Basemaps button to change the style or even mapping product you are viewing at each scale
  • PDF format prints in Ancient Roam
  • all Roams having the ability to print up to A0
  • a cleaner interface, consistent across all Roams
  • additional overlay options coming soon (boundaries, contours…)

The Download interfaces will also going through a similar process.

Data

  • A single consistent style for all the vector products through all the scale levels accessible through using the basemaps button in the new Roam.
  • VectorMap Local (VML) in shapefile and DWG formats
  • ArcGIS layer files for symbolising VML shapefiles coming soon
  • OS MasterMap Topo available as DWG is being planned

Support

  • There is a new Resource Centre, which does not require login, with answers to questions, videos, case studies etc.

Beyond Digimap

  • GoGeo has added more resources and now highlights the “Editor’s Picks”
  • ShareGeoOpen now has over 210 resources all of which are open and free to use
  • FieldTrip GB is a mobile app for capturing data, see below
  • GeoTagger – a tool to allow you to edit the metadata for your photos
  • Cartogrammar – upload your data and visualise it in different ways
  • UKBORDERS is now the UK Data Service Census Support Unit

On the horizon

We are still awaiting news on funding, but are lots of things we would like to do. Currently our focus is to “mobilise” more services and we will be continuing to add new support materials once the latest round of Roam and Download changes have been made.

If there are things you would like us to do we really want to hear about them. Recommendations from the user community carry real weight for us, and we are keen to hear ideas on new data or services we should be providing.

You can view the slides from this presentation here:

Slideshare Emma Diffley Presentation at Geoforum

EDINA Geoservices Review – Emma Diffley

Fieldtrip GB – data capture, simplified

The final part of the day was about EDINA’s new mobile app for carrying out field work Fieldtrip GB. It simplifies the process of capturing data in the field against quality cartographic mapping. It is equally at home in urban environments as it is in rural ones. Custom forms allow users to design their own data capture projects and collect exactly what they need for their research.  The session gave a brief overview before running a “live” group data collection exercise.  A custom form was created and deployed to participants mobile phones. They then headed outside and captured data on things like building fabric and design.  After 15 mins everyone reconvened and the collected data was “synced” and exported to Google Earth.

You can view the slides from this presentation on slideshare here:

FtGB Slideshare

FieldtripGB – data capture simplified – Addy Pope

As mentioned earlier, there is a transcript of the whole day in the form of a live blog  so if you didn’t manage to attend and want to find out what happened please have a look.

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Digimap Data Download: New datasets coming in January!

In January 2013 the OS MasterMap®, Boundary-Line™ and Code-Point® data products will be available from the Data Download service. We have tried to keep the changes necessary to accommodate these products to a minimum as the current interface has proved so successful (190,000 map tiles and files downloaded Nov 2012).

Here is a list of the changes and additions you will see in the interface; please note that they may still be subject to some change prior to launch.

Both Boundary-Line and MasterMap have layers so we have had to make changes to the basket:Digimap Data Download Basket

Instead of selecting Version and Format using drop-down menus there is a new pop-up for changing both these and the layers for each of the products in your basket. You can access this pop-up by clicking on the Change link in the Options column:

Digimap Data Download Basket Options

We have also improved the “My Account” section which is now called “My Previous Downloads”:

Opening "My Previous Downloads"Once in the interface you can access any of your past downloads and reopen them at the basket stage:

Digimap Data Download My Previous Downloads

It is now much easier to update your previous downloads to the latest version, get the same data in a different format or simply reorder data you have previously taken. In addition to these functions we have incorporated the ability to make Change-Only-Updates (COUs) to MasterMap Data:

Digimap Data Download Change Only Update

Both Boundary Download and MasterMap Download will be kept in service for a transition period but as there are so many benefits to using Data Download we hope everyone will make the switch quickly. We expect to have switched off these services by the end of April.

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