Category: Data Changes & Additions

Points of Interest now available through Ordnance Survey Data Download

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, New Features
Ordnance Survey Points of Interest sample
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence). This material includes data licensed from PointX© Database Right/Copyright 2015.

We are pleased to announce that the Points of Interest dataset from Ordnance Survey is now available to download through the Digimap Data Download application.

Points of Interest is a national dataset covering the whole of Great Britain and contains over 4 million different features. All features are supplied with location, functional information and addresses (where possible). Points of Interest has a three-level classification to assist customers in identifying the features or sets of features they require. This classification is explained in detail in chapter 3 of the official User Guide. The top level classification is given below:

  • Accommodation, eating and drinking
  • Commercial services
  • Attractions
  • Sport and entertainment
  • Education and health
  • Public infrastructure
  • Manufacturing and production
  • Retail
  • Transport

Please note: the copyright statement for Points of Interest is slightly different to the usual Digimap statement as the data is licensed from PointX by Ordnance Survey. The correct copyright statement that should be displayed with Points of Interest data is included below:

© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence). This material includes data licensed from PointX© Database Right/Copyright 2015.

The data can be found in the Boundary and Location Data section in Data Download:

Points of Interest in Data Download

The data is provided in CSV format and uses the pipe character as the field separator. To load this in to GIS for visualisation on a map requires a couple of short steps to create a definition file so that the GIS application uses the correct data types for each field in the file. We have created instructions on how to do this in ArcGIS and QGIS:

If you have any questions about Points of Interest or Digimap please contact us:

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

OS MasterMap Sites Layer now available in Digimap

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, New Features
OS MasterMap Sites Layer
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

A new MasterMap data layer is available to download that allows you to add an extra level of information to your maps. The Sites Layer shows boundaries for features such as schools, hospitals and other government property. The dataset currently contains the extents of over 40,000 important locations in Great Britain broken down in to seven themes, with more to be added in the future:

  • Air transport
  • Education
  • Medical care
  • Rail transport
  • Road transport
  • Water transport
  • Utility or industrial
OS MasterMap Sites Layer
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

MasterMap Sites Layer includes access points, such as pedestrian gates and driveways, and routing points allowing the data to be fully integrated with other OS products including MasterMap Topography Layer and MasterMap Integrated Transport Network (ITN) layer. Sites Layer can be used for informed decision-making and spatial analysis, enabling users to answer questions such as: ‘how much of this health centre is at risk of flooding?’.

Ordnance Survey have published clear instructions on how to import the data, which is supplied in GML3 format, into common GIS packages in their Sites Layer Getting Started Guide.

If you have any questions about Sites Layer or Digimap please contact us:

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

OS Building Height Attribute now available in file geodatabase format

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, New Features
3D Building Heights in ArcGIS
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

We are pleased to announce that users can now download OS MasterMap Building Height Attribute data in file geodatabase format. The data consists of building polygons together with the building height attributes supplied by OS in the latest alpha release of their Building Height Attribute dataset (December 2014 at the time of writing).

This makes the process of visualising the data in 3D much simpler for the majority of GIS users. The file geodatabase format can be read by both QGIS and ArcGIS, including the new ArcGIS Pro, without the need for any complex data processing. Making the data available in file geodatabase format removes the need for users to download building features from OS MasterMap Topography Layer and then use the JOIN function in GIS to connect the Building Height Attribute data to the buildings.

3D Buildings in ArcGIS
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2015. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

The data is supplied on a 5x5km grid, so you may receive multiple separate geodatabases if your area covers multiple 5km grid cells, however it is easy to merge the datasets together using common GIS functions.

We hope this makes it much easier to use the data but we welcome any feedback you may have.

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

1930s Land Use Maps now in Environment Digimap

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

We have moved the Dudley Stamp Land Use Survey maps from the Historic Digimap Collection to their more natural home in Environment Roam. In doing so we have increased their usability. You can now pan and zoom much more easily and can print and annotate the maps, something that was not available in the previous Land Use Map Viewer.

Environment Roam Basemaps TabTwo scales of map are available for all of England, Scotland and Wales: 1:625,000 and 1:63,360.

Environment Roam automatically switches between these at the appropriate point when zooming in or out of the map.

To view the 1930s maps go to the Basemaps selector on the right hand side of Environment Roam and choose Dudley Stamp 1930s from the drop down window.

1:63,360 Scale Map of Cowes, Isle of Wight

Dudley Stamp Land Use Map: 1:63,360 Scale
© L. Dudley Stamp/Geographical Publications Ltd, Audrey N. Clark, Environment Agency/DEFRA and Great Britain Historical GIS

1:625,000 Scale Map of the Isle of Wight

Dudley Stamp 625k
© L. Dudley Stamp/Geographical Publications Ltd, Audrey N. Clark, Environment Agency/DEFRA and Great Britain Historical GIS

If you have any questions about the Dudley Stamp maps or Environment Digimap please contact us:

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

New OS OpenData added to Digimap Data Download

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

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.

 

Digimap Data Download: Products Withdrawn

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features

Data Download Withdrawn CategoryOrdnance Survey will withdraw two products in 2016, the 1:10 000 Raster data and the Land-Form PROFILE data.  To remind you that these products will no longer be available from the Digimap service we are putting them in a new category in Data Download.  The Withdrawn category will contain these datasets until we have to remove them from the site, March 2016 for  the 1:10 000 Scale Raster and September 2016 for the Land-Form PROFILE contours and DTM.

10k Raster data supersededRemember that the VectorMap Local Raster data is a more detailed generally better product to use than the 1:10 000 scale raster.  If you really need the cartography of the old version, you can create a print map from Digimap Roam which styles the VectorMap Local data to look like the 1:10 000 Scale Raster. Just zoom in to the Street or Neighbourhood view levels and then use the Basemaps button at the top left of the map to change to the VML Raster 10k styling. An added advantage to doing this is that you can add in contour lines which were never available with the old data.

Land-Form PROFILE SupersededThe Land-Form Profile data has also been superseded, you should now use the OS Terrain 5 data instead. Although it is not available in DXF format, Terrain 5 is a much improved dataset compared to the older data and it is still available in the following formats: GML, Shapefile (for the contours) and ASCII (for the DTM).

If you have any questions about the withdrawal of these datasets then please let us know:

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

Digimap Data: New datasets coming in the New Year

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features

The new Ordnance Survey Licence includes some new and very interesting datasets for the Digimap service. We have already added OS Terrain 5, Ordnance Survey’s most detailed digital terrain model and contour data to the the Data Download facility. The other new datasets will require some additional effort to add into the service but we should have them available to download early in the new year. These new datasets are as follows:

OS MasterMap ITN Urban Paths

Routing information for walkers and cyclists in towns and cities.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

OS MasterMap Sites LayerOS MasterMap Sites Layer

Identifies areas as being in categories such as schools, hospitals, transport facilities etc. The data also highlights access points to the sites and routing destinations for more accurate travel distances.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

Points of Interest

Over 4 million points of interest classified into 3 tiers; 9 groups, 52 categories and 616 classes. The points of interest include accommodation, eating and drinking, commercial services, attractions, sport and entertainment, education and health, public infrastructure, manufacturing and production,retail, and transport.

Please note that Points of Interest data is made available under slightly different terms to the other Digimap Ordnance Survey datasets. Please see the EULA and FAQs for further details.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

EDINA has had many requests for these datasets, especially the Urban Paths so we are very pleased to be able to offer them to you. We also intend adding some of these datasets to Digimap Roam so that they can be added to the maps you view and print as well.

Please contact the EDINA help desk if you want access to the datasets mentioned above before they are made available in the Data Download service:

  • Phone: 0131 6503302
  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

Visualising OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute in AutoCAD Map 3D and InfraWorks

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Help, New Features, Of Interest

Update 12/02/2015: The contents of this blog post have been moved to the Digimap Help system and can be found at the following location (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#autocad/building_height_attribute/bha_in_autodesk.htm

For an overview of Building Height Attribute please see the following page (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#bha/bha.htm

InfraWorks visualisation
OS MasterMap® 1:2,000 Raster draped on top of OS Terrain™ 50, with buildings from OS MasterMap® Topography Layer extruded on top using Building Height Attribute data.

Visualising OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute in QGIS

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Help, New Features, Of Interest

Update 12/02/2015: The contents of this blog post have been moved to the Digimap Help system and can be found at the following location (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#qgis/building_height_attribute/bha_in_qgis.htm

For an overview of Building Height Attribute please see the following page (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#bha/bha.htm

QGIS 3D visualisation with trees
OS VectorMap® Local Raster draped on top of OS Terrain™ 50, with buildings from OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute and Positioned Non Coniferous Trees extruded on top

 

OS MasterMap® now available in File Geodatabase format from Digimap

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Help, New Features, Of Interest

To get the most from OS MasterMap data it is usually best to convert it from its supplied format, GML, to a format better suited to the software you are going to use it in. For our CAD users Digimap has been offering the DWG format for several months (see previous blog post); now we are offering a format that makes the data easier to use in GIS software.

Although Shapefile is still the most commonly requested GIS format it cannot handle the large file sizes (over 2GB) that could be requested from the Data Download service; an area of 100km2 in an urban centre would exceed this limit.  We therefore turned to the File Geodatabase format that works in the two most commonly used GIS software applications, ArcGIS and QGIS. There is more information about Geodatabases on Wikipedia here: Wikipedia -ArcGIS Geodatabase

To select the File Geodatabase format, add some MasterMap to your basket in Data Download. Once in the basket you can click the down arrow in the Format column and change it from the default GML to File Geodatabase:

File Geodatabase in Data Dowload

Geodatabase formats are the recommended formats  for use in ArcGIS software, being the most efficient for data storage and analysis. The format supports the use of .lyr files for styling the data and EDINA has provided some for the MasterMap data downloaded from Digimap.

The data can be added to a map in ArcGIS and QGIS in the usual way, though in QGIS you need to use Add vector layer –> Directory rather than a Database as you may assume.

Opening a Digimap File Geodatabase in QGIS

Styling information for both ArcGIS and QGIS has been provided by EDINA in .lyr and QML formats, these can be found at the bottom of Digimap’s help page for OS MasterMap. These representations give enough information to view the data in a style that OS MasterMap is commonly viewed in. The help page also contains a link to the official Ordnance Survey SLD styling information, please see the PDF that comes with the SLD files for information on how to use them.

There are help pages for adding styling information here:

If you require any help on using File Geodatabases from Digimap or any other dataset or format then please get in touch:

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