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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
Following the announcement of the general election for Thursday 12th December we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the GeoForum, due to be held in Edinburgh on Thursday 12th December.
We are aiming to reschedule the event for the spring of 2020 so will post details of a new date here as soon as possible.
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. We hope that you will be able to join us for the next one.
**UPDATE** This event has been postponed until Spring 2020. Watch this space for further details
We are very pleased to confirm the date and venue for our next Geoforum event and invite you to join us for an interesting programme, with a range of speakers and opportunities for discussion.
Geoforum will be on Thursday 12th December 2019 at the Bayes Centre, University of Edinburgh 10.30am – 4pm.
Please do save the date. We aim to showcase different uses of the data downloaded from Digimap by researchers from a number of disciplines. Topics include green space and mental health, satellite data and solar energy. There will also be a workshop session led by EDINA offering opportunity for discussion and feedback. We look forward to seeing you!
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. The confirmed programme will be published on our blog and distributed by email when available.
For those people in FE colleges using our Digimap for Colleges service, the following will be important. Digimap for Colleges is available to Further Education Colleges only.
From 31st December 2019 Digimap for Colleges will be no longer be available.
Access to the same maps (and substantially more) continues to be provided through our comprehensive Digimap service. You can learn more about this service here.
Subscriptions to Digimap are available at any time from now onwards and prices are available on our website. Note that these prices are for a full annual subscription and will be pro-rated from the date your subscription starts. If you would like to purchase a subscription for your institution, please contact us at edina@ed.ac.uk.
At EDINA we aim to create resources which are aligned with the needs of our subscribers. Furthermore, we are dedicated to providing access to the very best digital tools, helping learners in the FE sector to gain valuable skills that prepare them for employment. Continual investment in the staff and infrastructure that underpin our services is a necessity and this impacts the sustainability of free-to-use resources. As a consequence, operating and maintaining a free Digimap for Colleges service is no longer viable for us. However, the well-established and well-respected Digimap service provides a more flexible, powerful and comprehensive tool offering significant value and benefits.
Please do not hesitate to contact Guy Stevenson with any questions you may have.
We are pleased to announce that two new data products from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are now available to download through Environment Digimap.
By combining information on cropping patterns from CEH Land Cover®plus: Crops (a dataset also available through Environment Digimap) with national survey data on pesticide and fertiliser use, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has created two new data products: CEH Land Cover®plus Fertilisers and CEH Land Cover®plus Pesticides.
CEH Land Cover plus: Fertilisers dataset for England
CEH Land Cover®plus Fertilisers dataset covers England only. CEH Land Cover®plus Pesticides covers England and Wales. Both datasets are available to download from Environment Download.
If your institution does not yet have a subscription to Environment Digimap, you can register your interest in this collection on the Environment Digimap home page once you have logged in.
Over the last month or so, following feedback from users of the Digimap service, we made a few additions and enhancements to Digimap. We will be running a webinar on these early in the new term but here is a quick run down of the new features:
New Overlays added to OS Roam: Points of Interest (POI), Contours, Spot Heights and Postcode boundaries
Ability to view attributes of the POI, Contours and Spot Heights Overlays using the Information Tool
A5 printing in PDF, PNG and JPG now available in Roam
Ability to view attributes for imported data
Search results are now split into tabs
Digimap data now available via Web Map Service (WMS) feeds allowing the data to be streamed directly in to GIS applications and other Digimap Collections
Transparency slider added to all basemaps allowing you to fade out the basemap so that additional data stands out more clearly
Overlays
All Overlays in OS Roam can be found in the Overlays panel on the left hand side. Each Overlay has independent settings which allow control of the transparency of the Overlay layer and the ability to control which elements of the Overlay dataset are visible (or not). When printing a map which contains customised overlays, the customisation will not appear on your printed map. This means that if you select only one POI category on the screen, all POI categories will appear on the printed map. This is something that will be improved in the future.
Some overlays can be customised
It is also possible to view the attributes of the new Overlays using the Information tool in the header bar of the main window. Clicking on an Overlay feature will display the attribute information available for the feature. This includes, in the POI dataset, what type of business is represented, the address and postcode as well as the business or feature’s name.
Points of Interest data displayed as an overlay can now be queried using the Information tool.Postcode boundaries overlay shown with OS VectorMap District
View attributes of uploaded data
It is now possible to view the attributes of datasets loaded in to Roam. A variety of common spatial data formats, including Shapefile, GeoJSON and KML can be imported using the Drawing Tools > Import function. Once imported, attributes associated with each feature can be viewed using the Information tool. Below is an example of some imported postcode polygons with the Information tool identifying the postcode of the selected polygon.
View attributes of datasets imported in to Roam
Improved search results
We’ve made a small improvement to the way search results are displayed. When you search for a term, the results are now displayed in tabs according to the type of object you’ve searched for (Places, Roads, Postcodes and Grid References). This means that it’s much easier to find the result you want in a long list.
Search results are now separated into tabs
Digimap data now available as WMS feeds
A significant new feature is the delivery of WMS (Web Map Service) feeds for all the maps appearing in Digimap’s Roam applications. A WMS feed allows you to stream any of the Roam maps directly in to GIS software (e.g. QGIS or ArcGIS) or another Roam application. Select your Collection and look for the Web Services box below Data Download. This is currently available in all Collections except Lidar, Global and Society.
You can paste the URLs given into the WMS Server Connection interface in your GIS or use the “Add WMS Feed” button in Roam. This will give you a window in which to paste the WMS URL:
Any institution subscribing to Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection can now take a free trial of the Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland (OSNI) data. The free trial lasts until 31st July 2019.
The OSNI data can be accessed within Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection. Log in to Digimap and choose Data Download from the OS Collection. You will see the OSNI heading in the list of available data on the left hand side:
OSNI data can be found in Data Download
A range of raster and vector data is available at scales ranging from 1:2500 to 1:1 million. Aerial photographs are also included. All OSNI data is currently available for download and will be added to Roam in due course.
To sign up to the free trial, please contact your Digimap site representative or EDINA to express your interest. The trial is free but requires a subscription process to be completed by an authorised person.
If you have any questions about the OSNI data, we’re happy to help. Please contact us on digimap@ed.ac.uk or 0131 650 3302.
Over the next few weeks we will be running a programme of webinars covering updates to Digimap, Global and Society Collections and the Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland data, including how you can access these new services. A separate webinar to discuss and answer any questions on data licences will also be scheduled.
The first webinar will be on Thursday 16th May (13:00-13:45) where we will demonstrate all the recent and forthcoming changes. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions but places are limited so please register online if you wish to attend.
Don’t worry if you can’t make this webinar, it will be repeated on 23rd May and 30th May, details and registration links can be found on our Events page.
CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops has been produced by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in partnership with Remote Sensing Applications Consultants and provides annually updated arable crop information for the whole of Great Britain. You can read more about it in our previous blog post.
You can find the 2018 data under the Basemaps in Environment Roam and under the Crop Data heading in Environment Download.
All Digimap users currently have free access to Global Digimap until 31st July 2019 as a trial. We hope you like this new service. If you would like to learn more about the OpenStreetMap data, it’s origins and history, from someone who is more than qualified to tell the story, Steve Chilton is giving a talk at #geomob in London on 19th June 2019 about this very subject.
Last week we granted access to two new Digimap collections for all registered Digimap users. All Digimap users now have access to Global Digimap and Society Digimap. You should have received an email about this on Thursday 21st March.
The free trial will run until 31st July 2019. Access beyond that date will require your institution to have a subscription.
Global Digimap offers three datasets for mapping and data download: Open Street Map, Natural Earth and Collins Bartholomew World Panorama maps.
We are really keen to know what you think of the service and the data available. You can complete our online feedback form to tell us. We can’t answer questions submitted through this form; please contact our helpdesk if you need assistance.
Society Digimap offers a wealth of census and socio-economic data for Great Britain. This includes over 40 layers of data from a range of 2011 Census data, broadband availability and Output Area Classification (OAC). The complexity of census data is sometimes off-putting, despite the tremendous insights it can offer. Society Digimap aims to provide easy access to some key variables as an introduction to these complex data.
We are still working on providing a Data Download facility and a print facility for Society Roam, among other things. If you have suggestions on what else you would like to see in Society Digimap, we’d love to hear your views through our online feedback form. Please note that we cannot respond to queries submitted through this feedback form. If you need help, please get in touch: digimap@ed.ac.uk
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