We are pleased to announce a new webinar series for Digimap over the coming months. These short sessions are free to attend and are available to any Digimap user, whether staff, student or researcher. You will need to register to attend each webinar. Bookings will open a couple of weeks before each webinar is scheduled. The […]
Category Archives: Training & Events
GeoForum 2017 Summary
This years GeoForum, held in the Geological Society of London on the 22nd of June, was a very successful event for all those who attended. Academics and support staff from subscribing institutions got to meet representatives from the Digimap team and experts from our data suppliers and the wider geospatial community. In the morning session […]
Free Digimap webinar: Creating 3D models from Digimap data – 26 April 2017
The Digimap team are hosting a free webinar, on Wednesday 26 April 2017, from 1-1:30pm. The session will give an overview of how to create 3D models in common GIS and CAD packages (ArcGIS Pro, QGIS and AutoCAD) using data downloaded from Digimap. The session will look at the datasets available from Digimap that are […]
Digimap for Site Reps webinar – 29th March, 1-1:30pm
This free webinar will briefly cover recent changes to Digimap Collections and offer a summary of copyright issues. An ideal way for Digimap site reps, or any staff who support Digimap users, to get information on key aspects of Digimap activity. You will also have the opportunity to ask questions on any aspect of Digimap. […]
Digimap Webinar: Urban map data in CAD 15 March 1:30pm
Digimap are running a free webinar, on Wednesday 15th March between 1-1:30pm. The webinar is likely to be of interest to architecture staff and students, who use detailed Ordnance Survey urban map data in AutoCAD. We will: Show you how to download Ordnance Survey map data from Digimap AutoCAD: Discuss issues relating to the use […]
Free Aerial Digimap Webinar – 25th January 2017
EDINA will be running a free webinar about Aerial Digimap on Wednesday 25th January at 13:00 – 13:30pm. Please join us to learn more about Aerial Digimap and the benefits the data can bring to research, teaching and education. The webinar is free, but you will need to register (see link below). Places on the […]
Geoforum 2016 Summary
EDINA’s annual Geoforum conference for all its geospatial services and projects was held at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute of Geography this year. It was attended by nearly 50 delegates who came to find out what we have been up to over the past year and to see what we new things they can expect […]
GeoForum 2016: Booking Now Open
We are now taking bookings for EDINA’s GeoForum 2016 with this year’s event being held a the University of Edinburgh on the 7th of September.
![kim traynor [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://digimap.blogs.edina.ac.uk/files/2016/08/University_building_Drummond_Street_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_1352882-1.jpg)
kim traynor [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Reserve your place now:
GeoForum is a free all day event aimed at lecturers, researchers and support staff who promote and support the use of geospatial data and services at their institution. Throughout the day we there will be talks and demonstrations to inform you of current geospatial developments at EDINA and the wider community. It is also an opportunity to give EDINA feedback on the services we provide and discuss geospatial issues with the team.
Full details of this years event will and the programme will appear on the website when available:
This year we will be introducing some changes to the geospatial data services offered by EDINA to the academic community. These include new Ordnance Survey data products and updated licence agreements for most of the Digimap Collections. We also hope to present some case studies from staff and students who have been using data from Digimap and the other geospatial services from EDINA.
The conference will be located in the University of Edinburgh’s geography department on Drummond Street. We will also be highlighting what we have done over the summer to improve Digimap.
The conference is free to attend and runs from 10:00 till 16:15, for all the details and to book your place please visit the conference website: GeoForum 2016
Please contact us if you have any questions:
- Email: edina@ed.ac.uk
Find out what happened at last year’s event: GeoForum 2015
GeoForum 2015 Summary
University of Greenwich Queen Anne Court
For this year’s GeoForum we were lucky enough to be in the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, now home to the University of Greenwich. Around 60 delegates enjoyed a programme of talks and presentations aimed at keeping them up-to-date with the maps and mapping technology available to higher education.
The day began with Professor David Maguire, Jisc Chair, Vice principle of the University of Greenwich, former chief scientist at Esri and an acknowledged expert in computer mapping, outlining his vision of the future of both Jisc and Geographic information science. There was emphasis in his talk about the need to incorporate the Cloud in both Jisc’s services and into the Geographic Data and software services.
- Christopher Wesson, Ordnance Survey – Cartographic Principles
- Jason Taylor, Ravensborne – Building a 3D model from Digimap Data
- Emma Diffley, EDINA – Changes to the Ordnance Survey Licence
- Guy McGarva, EDINA – Digimap Update
- Ian Holmes, EDINA – Fieldtrip GB Excursion
Cartographic Design Principles
Slides will be added soon.
The first full presentation of the day came from Christopher Wesson, one of the founding members of Ordnance Survey’s digital Cartographic Design team. Christopher gave some background about Ordnance Survey and the data they are now creating. He then took us through eight key principles that used to create successful cartographic designs: User Requirements, Display Format, Visual Hierarchy, Simplicity, Legibility, Consistency, Accessibility and Good Composition.
Building a 3D Model
Slides will be added soon.
The Next presentation came from Jason Taylor, a technical tutor at Ravensbourne responsible for the production of physical models and prototypes. Janson took everyone through the step by step process of taking terrain data along with building foot prints and heights to create scale models of cityscapes.
The result of his work combined milling of MDF particle board and also 3D Printing of a miniature Millennium Dome. Nearly all of the data used in the production of the model came from Digimap (the details of the Dome’s shape came from a different source), and Jason highlighted the help pages as a great resource for helping him and his students beging to create their models.
The Ordnance Survey Licence
Slides will be added soon.
Emma Diffley, EDINA Geoservices Support team leader, then took the audience through the major changes made to the Digimap Licence for Ordnance Survey data. This important presentation highlighted the main differences between this agreement and the one it replaced, showing that it is more permissive than before, and that there is now an End User Licence Agreement (EULA) which places emphasis on the individuals to ensure they are abiding by the terms and conditions.
Lunch
During the Lunch break we had presentations from Esri‘s Addy Pope about the ArcGIS Online service; from the CadCorp team who highlighted their free GIS data viewer, MapExpress, and their discounts for educational use; and finally from the British Geological Survey who highlighted their subsurface data and Groundhog website.
Digimap Update
Slides will be added soon.
After lunch the delegates were split into two groups with half doing the excursion while the other half was updated on the latest work going on with Digimap and the other Geoservices run by EDINA.
Guy McGarva, EDINA Geoservices Support, gave the Digimap Update presentation highlighting the past year’s achievements and the plans for the coming year. Much of the coming improvements are to do with improving access to the service for mobile devices and also to the data for CAD users. There are also a lot of new products and cartographic improvements to old products going into the Roam online mapping interfaces.
Guy also highlighted some future trends including better integration between services and a shift to delivering more training through interactive webinars rather than face-to-face training.
Fieldtrip GB
Slides will be added soon.
During the Fieldtrip GB excursion Ian Holmes, EDINA Geoservices Support, took the delegates through the process of designing a data collection form, deploying it to the groups mobile phones, collecting data points from around the Greenwich campus and then uploading the data and viewing it on a map. The entire process was carried out live for each group with the minimum of fuss, highlighting the mobile app’s usefulness for carrying out citizen science or group fieldwork.
We also found out about a few of the enhancements coming to the app, including:
- more stable data management
- the ability to longer and more complicated multi-page data entry forms
- an entirely new version with OpenStreetMap data for use worldwide
- the ability to upload your own maps or way-points to highlight where to collect data
Final Summary
We’d like to thank all the speakers and delegates at this years conference for taking part in a very successful event.
All the presentations throughout the day highlighted the changes in the world of digital mapping occurring right now. We hope that the changes highlighted in the Digimap Update presentation along with the rest of the planned at EDINA will mean the Digimap will continue to be relevant for it users and help them prepare for future work with maps and digital data.
Finally we’d also like to thank the University of Greenwich for providing a first class venue and event coordination team to ensure it was a memorable day.
GeoForum 2015: Programme announced
We have now released the programme for this year’s GeoForum, you can find it on the conference website here:
The highlights of this years conference will be:
- An introduction to the day from Professor David Maguire, Jisc Chair, Vice principle of the University of Greenwich, former chief scientist at Esri and an acknowledged expert in computer mapping and geographic information systems.
- A talk given by Ordnance Survey about their cartographic principles and how they apply them when designing the visual representations for features on their maps.
- A presentation given by architecture and design staff and students from Ravensbourne showcasing the physical models they have been producing using or inspired by Digimap maps and data.
- A round-up of all the things you need to know about from the recently updated Ordnance Survey licence.
University of Greenwich Queen Anne Court
As well as these presentations we will have our data and software suppliers present to tell you about there new and up coming products such as OS Open Map data, BGS Groundhog & ArcGIS Pro. We will also be bringing you up to date with all the new developments at EDINA and taking you outside in the impressive grounds of the old Royal Naval College to have a look at some new developments with EDINA’s Fieldtrip App.
Finally there will be time for you to chat with people from all the other institutions about how they support and promote geospatial data and software, there are already over 50 people registered to attend with over 25 different institutions represented so far.
If you haven’t booked your place yet then please do so soon, places will be limited:
Please let us know if you have any questions about the event:
- Email: edina@ed.ac.uk
- Phone: 0131 650 3302
