Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue.
Digimap is an online map and data delivery service, available by subscription to UK Higher and Further Education establishments. Operated by EDINA at the University of Edinburgh, Digimap offers a number of data collections, including Ordnance Survey, historical, geological, aerial photography, LiDAR, marine maps, land cover mapping, global mapping and census data. For more information about Digimap go to our website: https://digimap.edina.ac.uk Background image Contains OS data (c) Crown Copyright and database right 2022
Geology Roam now allows you to view British Geological Survey images (of geological features, rocks, fossils and the BGS at work) from the JIDI Image Collection. The images area accessed via the map interface when you are zoomed in to the most detailed geology maps.
There are over 3000 images mainly found in geologically rich areas such as Cumbria, North and South Wales, the Dorset coast, Edinburgh etc. The images cover a wide range of features from details of bedding planes and large crystals in rock faces to aerial photographs of valleys showing glacial erosion features.
To access the photos go to one of the 5 most detailed zoom levels in Geology Roam and click on the camera icon in the tool bar or Geological Photos tab. You can then pan around the maps till you find an area with some photos.
The photos are marked on the map at the location they were taken from; click on the markers to see thumbnails of the image(s) for the location. You can view a full sized image with detail about what is shown by clicking on the thumbnail.
These photos are useful for geologists but there are also some spectacular landscape images that can be enjoyed by everyone.
EDINA is pleased to announce the release of Digimap OpenStream – a web service delivering OS OpenData to the UK academic sector using open standard WMS technology.
Digimap OpenStream is an EDINA Digimap value-added service freely available to the academic community. Access is not restricted to registered Digimap users, although a one-off online registration is required. The OS OpenData offered is accessible 24/7 and users are able to embed it into their own application software without the overheads of downloading and managing large quantities of data.
Digimap OpenStream provides access to the following OS OpenData products:
MiniScale®
1:250,000 Scale Colour Raster
OS Vector Map™ District (Raster)
OS Street View®
Details of the Application Programming Interface (API) are provided along with simple guides illustrating how to use the service within popular GIS software.
Some new Digimap training event dates have been advertised on the EDINA website. Both courses (which require attendance in person) and webinars (requiring online attendance) have been scheduled. Further details of both can be found on the EDINA Events and Training page:
To find an event by it’s location, try our Events Map: http://edina.ac.uk/events/eventsmap/
This will show you the location of all the events EDINA is taking part in so that you can find an event near you easily. Different types of events are colour-coded and you can zoom in and out of the map to clarify locations.
Signing up for an event is easy. You can register online using the booking form provided with the details for each event.
The Chest Agreement with ESRI expires on 31 July 2011. Some of you may remember helping to shape the current Chest Agreement and how tricky it was. We’re starting work on the renewal early, with a break-out and discussion session at the Eduserv & ESRI Event for Higher Education on Thursday 23 September 2010 at the Congress Centre in central London.
This event follows on from the success of two previous technical events, held at the University of Leeds in 2008 and University of Birmingham in 2009. The meeting is intended to bring together people from universities who are either using ArcGIS or other ESRI software or providing and supporting ESRI software in their institutions.
In addition to the very important session on shaping the new Chest Agreement, this year’s event will also feature sessions on:
* What’s new in ArcGIS 10
* How to get the most from Virtual Campus
* Mobile GIS best practice
* User presentation from University of Worcester.
Most of the presentations will be by people from within the Higher Education community. The event will also include a free (optional) networking breakfast for both users of GIS and those who licence the software to share experiences and discuss challenges. Lunch is also included.
Head of Research and Geo Data Services £46,510 – £52,347
Open-ended Contract
We seek a recognised leader in Geographic Information to sustain, develop and advance our strategic contribution to research and education in the UK. Use your experience in the use of geo-data, and proven record of research and team-working, to deliver online services and take forward project work at EDINA.
Based in Information Services at The University of Edinburgh, EDINA has world-class reputation for its service delivery and project success, in geographic information and more widely, http://edina.ed.ac.uk/. As a UK National Academic Data Centre, designated by the JISC, EDINA serves the needs of staff and students in universities and colleges across the UK, and is called upon to meet needs in the policy research and the school sectors – examples include support for INSPIRE and the recently-launched Digimap for Schools.
For further details about the post and to apply, please visit www.jobs.ed.ac.uk Job Ref Number: 3013235
On 31st August, the annual update available through Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection will take place. A number of data and service changes will take place.
The annual data update applies to the following datasets:
– MasterMap Topography and ITN Layers
– Meridian2
– 1:50 000 Colour Raster
– 1:25 000 Colour Raster
– 1:10 000 Raster
– Strategi
– 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer
– Code-Point with Polygons
– Boundary Line
NB: Ordnance Survey do not provide regular annual updates to Land-Form PROFILE and do not update Land-Form PANORAMA)
Updated data will be available in all the Digimap OS Collection mapping and download services.
New dataset
During the annual data update, a new dataset will be added to Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection. OS VectorMap Local is a 5 x 5km tiled vector dataset, offering detailed national mapping. The data is derived from OS Landplan and is supplied in GML format. It is commonly used as a rich backdrop map to add context to user datasets. Features include roads, railways, vegetation, boundaries and buildings. Pre-defined stylesheets are available to apply to the data, or you can select and style different features in different ways to provide geographic context to your information. OS VectorMap Local will be available to download from the Data Download facility within Digimap’s OS Collection.
As OS VectorMap Local is provided in GML, it needs to be converted to proprietary data formats in order to be fully utilised. Rolta UK (www.rolta-europe.com/osvector.html) have developed a free-to-use data translator tool to convert OS VectorMap Local to ESRI Shapefile and MapInfo TAB formats. Rolta also supply styling which can be applied to Shapefiles using the Layerfiles provided with the software. Styling can be applied to TAB files during the translation process. Further information about OS VectorMap Local, translation and use can be found in the Digimap Help Pages.
Ancient Roam
The 31st August update will see Ancient Roam move from its Beta phase to become a full service. Ancient Roam has proved very popular since its release in April generating in excess of 300,000 screen maps in four months. On 31st August, the ability to view two maps side by side to compare changes over time will be added. The 2up View provides a quick and easy way to view two maps from different decades at the same time.
A new drag to zoom tool will also be added to make it even quicker and easier to zoom quickly into your area of interest.
There are more features planned for Ancient Roam over the coming year, so please send us your comments and suggestions if you would like to see anything particular added. Although Ancient Roam is becoming a full service, the exiting Historic Mapper will remain until the end of 2010.
OS OpenData in Digimap
Some data products offered through Digimap have been released by Ordnance Survey under the OS OpenData scheme. Many of these were already available through Digimap and continue to be provided as before. Three of the OS OpenData products have not previously been available through Digimap. These are:
– OS Street View,
– OS VectorMap District
– OS VectorMap District Raster
All the Ordnance Survey products are available to download from the Data Download facility in Digimap’s OS Collection.
Digimap continues to offer full flexibility in identifying and downloading the data you want. Although the OS OpenData products are available from Ordnance Survey’s website directly, search and select options are limited.
If you have any questions about these changes or about Digimap in general, please do not hesitate to contact the EDINA Helpdesk on edina@ed.ac.uk
On Tuesday 3 August 2010, all Digimap Collections will be unavailable from 10.00 hrs until 16.00 hrs while the service hardware is upgraded. Notice of progress will be posted on the Digimap Collections login page.
EDINA has been asked to post the following request for assistance regarding the usability of geographic information. Please follow the links below if you can help.
Hey Everyone,
My name is Michael Brown; I’m working with the University of Nottingham in conjunction with Ordnance Survey to develop a set of User Centred Design Tools for use with Geographic Information.
As part of this I am currently working on a questionnaire for the measurement of the Usability of Geographic Information. The next stage of this process is to validate the questionnaire by getting people to complete it, focusing on a few specific products. This will allow me to calculate how well it differentiates between different GI data sets as well as providing useful information about the products that will be fed back to Ordnance Survey.
If you have any experience with any of these products, I’d appreciate your help. Please follow the relevant link(s) and complete the questionnaire(s). This version is fairly short and should take less than 5 minutes to complete.
Feel free to complete more than one of them and please forward this on to anyone you think might be able to help me collect responses. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at: michael.brown@ordnancesurvey.co.uk
EDINA has released Geology Roam; a new mapping facility within the Geology Digimap Collection. Geology Roam is based upon the Roam mapping facility from Digimap’s OS Collection and includes standard features such as fixed scale map views, ‘slippy maps’, map content customisation, searching by place name, postcode and grid reference, bookmarking and comprehensive help.
Geology Roam contains BGS DiGMap-625, DiGMap-250 and DiGMap-50 geology datasets and Ordnance Survey backdrop mapping. The geological data includes bedrock, superficial deposits, mass movement and faults.
Key features of Geology Roam include the ability to decrease/increase the opacity of the geology data over the Ordnance Survey back-drop map. A single click on the map will query the geology data and display details about the bedrock and any superficial deposits found at that point.
Geology Roam features a new printing interface that will become standard in all the Roam mapping facilities across Digimap. The new printing interface enables you to resize and reposition the map, and to add a map title and National Grid lines.
Beta Service
Currently available as a BETA service, we encourage you to give us feedback on the usability of Geology Roam so that issues you raise can be factored into ongoing development over the coming months. As well as responding to any issues you report, the following additional functions will be introduced:
Geological area (polygon) highlighting when clicking to obtain feature information, to make it easier to identify the extent of any geological feature to which the reported information corresponds.
Map based links to a Geology Photography Collection (JIDI Images). Icons will appear over the geology maps to indicate the availability of geological feature photographs for that location. Click on the icon to view these photographic images within the Geology Roam application.
Introduction of the BGS Rock Lexicon as an Independent application Geology Roam will run in parallel with the existing Geology Mapper during the Beta phase, after which Geology Mapper will be withdrawn (Dec 2010).
The existing mapping application will be withdrawn in December 2010 and will be wholly replaced by Geology Roam.
EDINA would welcome feedback on the service and on these proposed developments. Please contact us on edina@ed.ac.uk or 0131 650 3302.
Over the years some problems have been reported with a few Land-Form PROFILE data tiles. Ordnance Survey have now provided us with updated versions of these tiles for which the problems have been fixed. The following tiles have been updated for both DTM and contour data:
hp50sw
nm80nw
nm80sw
nm87ne
nm87nw
nt87sw
ny47se
ny57sw
ny87sw
sd61ne
ss30ne
ss30nw
ss30se
ss30sw
ss31se
ss31sw
ss40sw
st20nw
st30se
st40ne
st40se
st50ne
st50nw
st50se
st57se
st76se
st85nw
st86nw
st86sw
sx39nw
sx49nw
sx57ne
sx57se
sy49ne
sy59nw
Thanks to those who have reported the errors in the data.
Author: 
Geology Roam now allows you to view British Geological Survey images (of geological features, rocks, fossils and the BGS at work) from the JIDI Image Collection. The images area accessed via the map interface when you are zoomed in to the most detailed geology maps.
To access the photos go to one of the 5 most detailed zoom levels in Geology Roam and click on the camera icon in the tool bar or Geological Photos tab. You can then pan around the maps till you find an area with some photos.
The photos are marked on the map at the location they were taken from; click on the markers to see thumbnails of the image(s) for the location. You can view a full sized image with detail about what is shown by clicking on the thumbnail.
