New MasterMap style is OS Roam

This summer our cartographic team have been busy working on a new style for OS MasterMap Topography layer. These are the maps displayed at the three most detailed zoom levels in Digimap OS Roam. The original style, created more than ten years ago, followed the official style published by Ordnance Survey and has undergone little […]

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 […]

New Digimap Licence Agreements

We are now at the start of a new academic year and Digimap has new licence agreements in place for the Ordnance Survey, Geology and Historic Map and Data Collections. You may have noticed already that you have been asked to agree to the licence again when you logged in.  This is because some of the terms are different and you are required to agree to these new terms prior to accessing the data within the service.

When you login you will notice the Licence Agreements button at the top right of the home page.

Licence Agreement Button

Clicking on this will allow to you to view the licences you have agreed to and to agree to those you have not yet agreed to.

New Licence Agreements 2016

If a Collection has a new licence, the applications (e.g. Roam and Data Download) in that Collection will also appear grey. By trying to access an application which has a new licence, you will automatically be taken through the process of agreeing to it if you have not yet done so.

All you need to do is accept the licence and restate your purpose for using the service (which may or may not have changed since you agreed to the previous licence) and you will have access to the service once more.

If you have any questions or need any help or guidance have a look at the Agreeing to Licences for Digimap Collections section half way down the following help page:

Or send us an email:

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

 

New Digimap Home Page is Live

The new look home page we told you about in the last blog post, has now been launched.

Home Page August 2016

Along with the fresh new look for the start of the new academic year we have also updated the registration and licence agreement pages. The structure of the pages and access to the applications has not been changed, so you should have no problem navigating around the page.

Please let us know if you have any questions or need any more information:

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

New Digimap Home Page for the new Academic Year

We have been hard at work developing a fresh new look for Digimap which we will be launching for the new academic year. Here is a sneak preview, though please note that nothing has been finalised just yet:

Digimap Home Page July 2016

The operation of the page remains the same and the layout is almost identical, we have just given it a modern fresh look. We hope you like it!

If you have any questions or require any more information then please feel free to contact us:

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

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Detailed contemporary mapping added to Ancient Roam

We have recently added detailed, large scale, contemporary mapping to Ancient Roam allowing users to compare side by side historic mapping with detailed modern mapping.

Large Scale Contemporary Mapping in Ancient Roam

The detailed modern mapping is visible at all zoom levels in both the 1-up and 2-up views. The most detailed mapping uses the new OS OpenMap – Local product, which is the most detailed Open Data product available from Ordnance Survey and can be downloaded through the Digimap Ordnance Survey collection. We further enhanced the most detailed mapping to include the additional features from OS VectorMap District:

  • Contours
  • Spot heights
  • Medical centres
  • Police stations
  • Heritage sites
  • Places of worship

The other products we have added are OS StreetView and OS VectorMap District Raster to provide a comprehensive set of contemporary map data suitable for all zoom levels in Ancient Roam.

We hope you find the new data useful, if you have any questions about the updates or Digimap please contact us:

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

Improvements to using Digimap data in CAD systems

As many of you may be aware, the number of users of the Digimap service using CAD systems has increased considerably over the years. As this user base has grown we have endeavoured to make the data we provide as easy to use as possible in these systems. As part of this effort to continually improve the service we offer, we have made some considerable enhancements to the products we offer for use in CAD systems.

Part of the problem is that there is a proliferation of systems in use under the general banner of ‘CAD’ systems, including AutoCAD, Revit, Rhinoceros, Vectorworks to name a few. A common factor between these systems is that they can accept vector data in DWG format, however, the way that DWG data is handled can vary between systems.

A number of our products in DWG format were loading into CAD systems but some were not correctly spatially referenced. This meant that although the data looked fine and worked perfectly well on its own, but it was difficult to overlay or integrate it with other datasets. We have now fixed this issue, so that it is possible to overlay common products together much more easily.

To accompany the DWG map data we also provide Digital Terrain Model (DTM) data to allow you to create a landsurface to loacte buildings and infrastructure on. In the past we only provided the OS Terrain 5 DTM in a format that was not so easily used in some CAD systems. To remedy this, we are now delivering OS Terrain 5 DTM in the XYZ format that can be used in most CAD systems.

These are the Changes we have made:

  1. All data available as DWG should overlay correctly where appropriate in AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil, Revit and Rhinoceros.
  2. All data has the correct Spatial Reference (British National Grid) and Units (metres).
  3. OS Terrain 5 Contours are available as 3D Polyline data which is suitable for creating surfaces in Revit and Rhinoceros 5.
  4. OS Terrain 5 DTM is available in an XYZ format which can be used to create surfaces in AutoCAD and Rhinoceros 5.
  5. OS MasterMap Sites Layer is now available in DWG.
OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours

OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours

We have updated our help pages in line with these changes and recommend that you consult the AutoCAD FAQ page which has further details for how you can load Digimap data in to common CAD packages.

We hope our CAD users find these changes useful but if you have any questions about using Digimap data in a CAD system please let us know. Similarly if you can provide us with any information about using Digimap data in a CAD system we would be very pleased to hear from you.

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

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Digimap dataset updates: March and April 2016

Lots of datasets were updated in March and April this year, with the majority of updates being to data in the Ordnance Survey Collection of Digimap. We also updated the vector marine data in Marine Roam so that it is now displaying the same version that is available for download through Marine Download; the Borehole data in Geology Download has also been updated to the latest version.

The updates include the latest versions of the 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 Colour Raster products which show the new height of Ben Nevis. The mountain, which is the tallest in Britain, was recently resurveyed by OS and found to be one metre taller than the measurements taken during the previous survey in 1949. If you’re interested in finding out more about the resurvey, and why two different heights are shown for the summit on the maps, the Ordnance Survey have published a blog post which explains the process in detail.

Ben Nevis showing new height

The tables below detail all the datasets that were updated recently in each Collection along with the publication dates of each one.

OS Data Download:

Product Name OS Publication Date
1:25,000 Colour Raster March 2016
1:50,000 Colour Raster March 2016
MasterMap Topography Layer January 2016
VectorMap Local January 2016
VectorMap Local Raster January 2016
VectorMap District March 2016
VectorMap District Raster March 2016
Terrain 5 Contours January 2016
Terrain 5 DTM January 2016
Code-Point with Polygons January 2016 and April 2016
Code-Point February 2016
Code-Point Open February 2016
Points of Interest March 2016
Open Names March 2016
MiniScale January 2016
* OS Street View April 2016
* Meridian 2 July 2015 and January 2016
* Strategi January 2016

 

OS Roam:

Product Name OS Publication Date
1:25,000 Colour Raster March 2016
1:50,000 Colour Raster March 2016
MasterMap Topography Layer January 2016
VectorMap Local January 2016
VectorMap Local Raster January 2016
VectorMap District Raster March 2016
Terrain 50 Contours July 2015
 MiniScale January 2016
* Meridian 2 January 2016
* Strategi January 2016

* Note: these are the last updates to OS Street View, Merdian 2 and Strategi that will be supplied by Ordnance Survey who have announced that they are retiring these products. Whilst the data will still be available to download through Digimap, these products will no longer be updated to reflect changes in the real world.

The data product updates help page is kept up to date with all dataset updates in the Ordnance Survey collection.

 

Marine Roam:

As well as all the changes in the Ordnance Survey collection, we have also updated the vector data in Marine Roam from Seazone Solutions. This brings the data up to date with the latest version of the product from SeaZone Solutions, which is also available for download through Marine Download.

Product Name SeaZone Publication Date
HydroSpatial One August 2015

HydroSpatial One showing Leith harbour

 

Geology Download:

Finally the Borehole data available in Geology Download has also been updated to the latest version available from the British Geological Survey.

Product Name BGS Publication Date
Onshore Borehole Index January 2016

 

If you have any questions about the dataset updates or Digimap please contact us:

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

Improvements to Digimap February/March 2016

Last week (3rd March) we released a new version of Digimap which includes a number of changes that may be of interest to our growing user base. Our set-up allows us to release new versions without requiring any downtime so the recent changes are highlighted below as they may not be obvious at first glance.

Greyscale versions of the 1:25,000 Colour Raster and 1:50,000 Colour Raster have been added to OS Roam

We have added greyscale versions of the 1:25,000 Colour Raster and 1:50,000 Colour Raster products in the Roam client of the Ordnance Survey Collection. These can be selected using the Basemaps drop-down.

Greyscale 1:25,000 Colour Raster with annotations

The new greyscale versions make it much easier to see your annotations on top of the basemap. The greyscale versions can be saved and printed like all other basemaps available in OS Roam.

Warning about losing changes in all Roam clients

If you customise a map in one of the Roam clients, for example by modifying the layers that are displayed or by creating annotations on the map, then press the browsers back button or navigate away from Roam you will now see a warning prompt advising you that you may lose your changes. The prompt that is displayed in Chrome is shown below:

Confirm navigation

The prompt is not displayed if you have saved the map, printed the map, or exported the annotations.

Updates to the Open/Save wording in all Roam clients

We have updated the text on the Open and Save menus in all Roam clients to make it clearer what each option does:

Roam Open drop down

Open > Saved maps allows you to open any maps you have previously created and saved within Roam.

Open > Import annotations is where you go to import external datasets in to Roam (we currently support the import of datasets in Shapefile, KML, GPX, CSV, and GeoJSON formats).

 

Roam Save drop down

Save > Save map will save the current map extents along with any annotations to Digimap for retrieval at a later date.

Save > Export annotations allows you to export annotations from Roam as an external dataset for use GIS/CAD (we currently support the export of datasets in Shapefile, KML, and GeoJSON formats).

 

Background mapping in Data Download of all Collections is now shown in greyscale

The background mapping data in all Data Download clients has been converted to greyscale:

OS Data Download

This makes it much easier to see the availability and reference grids in these applications.

Further improvements

We hope you enjoy using these new features. We are continually improving the service so if you have any suggestions for improvements to the service please get in touch:

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

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Recent improvements to Digimap

We released a new version of Digimap last week (2nd February) which included a number of improvements to the service. Whilst we try to minimise downtime during releases some users may have noticed some of the new features; in this post we’ll highlight the changes that affect Digimap users.

Chart Roam

By far the biggest change happened in the Marine Collection where the old, somewhat dated, Marine Maps application was replaced with the new Chart Roam application. Chart Roam uses the familiar Roam interface to display hydrographic charts, enabling users to quickly and easily navigate around using the tools they are familiar with from other Roam clients.

New Chart Roam Interface

Updated Roam Measurement ToolsChart Roam displays marine Hydrographic Charts from SeaZone Solutions using the WGS84 Web Mercator projection. As part of the work done to support the display of map data in different projections we added Nautical Miles to the distance measurement tool in Chart Roam. Users can now measure distances in metric (metres and kilometres), imperial (yards and miles) and nautical units; areas measurements can only be made in metric units at present.

Annotations [all Roam clients]

We have made significant improvements behind the scenes to the way annotations are handled in all Roam applications. This work was done to ensure that users uploading annotations with a large number features can style, save and print the data once loaded in to one of the Roam applications. Other notable improvements are detailed below:

  • We have added the ability to load multiple Shapefiles as annotations from a single Zip archive. Previously it was only possible to import a single Shapefile from a Zip archive, and all other Shapefiles were ignored by the import process. Now all Shapefiles in your Zip archive will be added to the map, and they can be of different geometry types e.g. points, lines and polygons.
  • We have improved the printing process so that it is possible to create prints that contain many more annotations.
  • Improvements have been made to remove some of the internal file size and feature number limits when loading, saving and exporting larger annotations. Note there is a 10MB file size limit when importing annotations.
  • Annotations in CSV (comma separate value) format can now be imported using Latitude and Longitude values; previously it was only possible to import CSV annotations in the British National Grid projection.

Ordnance Survey Roam

A number of changes have been made to the Ordnance Survey Roam application, predominantly to rationalise the data available at the different zoom levels:

  • The vector version of VectorMap District (VMD) has been added to OS Roam and is available at the Local View zoom level (approx. 1:19,000) as an alternative map accessed through the Basemaps option:
    VectorMap District Basemap
  • The Local Plus View has been removed and the datasets available in the District and Local Views have been rationalised. Full details of the datasets available in each View can be found on this help page.

Accessing Product Help [all Roam clients]

As well as updating the help pages to cover the changes listed above, we have also changed the Map Information panel in all Roam clients making it easier for users to get help on the particular map product(s) they are currently viewing in the map window.

  • Hyperlinks to help pages for each product have been added to product names in all Roam clients. The screen grab below was taken from Geology Roam where the hyperlink takes the user through to a help page dedicated to the map product currently displayed in the map window (DiGMapGB-50 Rock Unit):

Map Information Product Hyperlinks

 

We hope you enjoy using these new features, and if you have any suggestions for improvements to the service please get in touch:

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