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
Booking is now open for the EDINA Geoforum Event on the 20th of June at the National Railway Museum, York. All the details including a provisional programme are on the website: http://edina.ac.uk/events/geoforum2012/
This free event will provide an important opportunity for anyone who supports geographic services, data and software to find out what EDINA is doing with Digimap and our other geo-services.
There will also be representatives from our data suppliers, partner institutions and some of the major GIS software vendors present. The event will a be a great way to get yourself up-to-date with what is happening with maps and geospatial data in Higher and Further Education.
Due the success of the New Data Download we are announcing the retirement of our old Data Download and Gazetteer Download facilities. The new Data Download performs all the functions of the two older ones, which have now been around for many years.
Were not stopping there though as the new Data Download is continuing to be developed and we hope to have a few enhancements added in June. In addition to this the data from Boundary Download will be brought in later this year and eventually MasterMap data will be included. This will allow you to get all the Ordnance Survey Data offered by Digimap from one single facility.
Please note that the Gazetteer Query and Gazetteer Plus services will not be affected.
If you have any comments or suggestions about the new Data Download facility or any other part of the Digimap service then please let us know: edina@ed.ac.uk
Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection Disciplines from the 2012 survey
These reports give an idea of who is using the services, what they are using them for and what their experience of using the site was like. There are a lot of interesting uses of the service quoted in the reports; it was very hard to pick the ones to include from the huge response that we had.
A final thank you to all those who filled in a survey.
Here are direct links to the reports about each geoservice provided by EDINA:
Digimap is getting a fresh new look with a significant change to the home page. The change is being made to make it easier to find the different services within Digimap and to help our users get assistance with the maps and data. To do this we will be adding a new resource centre where we will bring together all of the support and help resources that are available. The resource centre will offer guidance on not only the information available from Digimap but how to use it in GIS and CAD software.
The new home page will show all the different applications available within Digimap before you login, so you can see what else is available, and show what you are using to your colleagues and classmates. There will also be news and blog extracts on the page to keep you up to date with all things Digimap.
We already have some working prototypes and will shortly begin testing the interface on groups of users to make sure it really does make things easier. We aim to have the new page in place later this year; afterwards you should notice more and more elements of Digimap change to the new look.
You may have noticed that the blog was pretty quiet in January and February. This has been due to an overwhelming response to the recent Digimap Surveys, and we’d like to thank everyone again who took the time to fill them in.
We have been busy creating the reports from the responses and making sure that the wealth of information you provided us is seen and recognised by our funding body, JISC. We have read so many stories about how important Digimap is to your studies, research and teaching and, as always, were very impressed by the new and innovative uses you have come up with.
We are particularly glad to see that Marine Digimap is being used for teaching and studying offshore alternative energy. This is set to be an important area of research and a growth industry in the UK so we are very pleased to see our service playing a part. Please get in touch with us if you would like your institution have trial access to Marine Digimap, or any of the other collections, to see how you can be using it to enhance your work.
We were also interested to see how widely Geology and Historic Digimap were being used by Architecture and Planning students to improve their site surveys. We knew that OS MasterMap was an important resource, but were not aware of the amount of detail that you were putting into your reports. Here are just a few more highlights of the uses you have for Digimap:
Analysing roost selection and foraging behaviour in bats.
Urban forestry ecosystem management.
4D-GIS techniques for spatio-temporal analysis of the Fylde Coast.
Mapping bumblebee distributions, salt marsh loss, wind farm locations, land use changes, the Roman Road network etc.
Research into accessibility of health services and environmental determinants of health.
Locating where an artist had made their pictures on the Pembroke coast.
At the same time as gathering information for JISC we also added in a few questions at the end of the survey about what you would like to see us concentrate on doing next. We got some very good feedback here and have recognised that there is a great demand for features such as printed maps and data to be provided in different formats. Over the coming months we will be using the survey’s findings to help us schedule improvements and additions to the service.
Once again, a huge thank you for filling in the survey, for the useful feedback and for the very kind comments about Digimap. It is great to know how important our work is to you.
We are planning to hold a Geoforum event on the 20th of June in York at the National Railway Museum, so please keep the date free in your diary. It will be a free, all day event aimed at informing you of current geospatial developments at EDINA and the wider community, including the projects we are working on at the moment. It will also be an opportunity for you to give us feedback on the services we are providing and discuss geospatial issues with the team.
The day will be a mixture of presentations and workshops with plenty of time for networking with other geospatial people from across academia. Previous Geoforum events have been very successful in providing a space for those attending to share ideas about teaching and research using maps and spatial data. Please tell any friends and colleagues who may be interested; we will be using #geoforum on twitter.
Keep checking back at the blog and the EDINA Events page for details of the programme and how to register.
Digimap will be holding a webinar this week, Wednesday 22nd February 10:30 to 11:30, for people who want to use MasterMap in CAD software. This is going to be especially useful for Architecture and Planning students or anyone else who uses CAD software. Attendance is free and only requires an up-to-date web browser. (Browser requirements and test page can be found here: Technical Details.)
All the booking and joining details can be found on the EDINA Training & Events page:
There are more webinars and training events planned for Digimap users this spring on the EDINA training and events page; for a “Digimap Only” list check the Training Events tab here on the blog:
We have the latest OS LocatorTM and OS Street View® data available from our new Data Download site.
Previously we have kept the data fixed for an academic year, this was the result of a consultation with our users when the service was first conceived. This meant that the data used would be consistent and reliable. As the new data download service allows us to make multiple versions of the same data available at the same time we can now offer the latest versions as and when they are delivered to us by Ordnance Survey.
We have not yet decided how many versions of each dataset we will store at EDINA, so please let us know if you have any opinions on this matter. There will be constraints due to any licensing issues and due to the size of the data, but if you have any requirements we’d like to see if we can meet them.
The Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection now has a new Data Download site, with a much improved search and selection interface. The new interface came from your feedback about the existing Data Download and has been designed to allow users:
a much more flexible way to pan and zoom the map while selecting data.
to be able to select more than one product for the area they are downloading data for.
to be able to take their full allowance of data in a single download.
Click for a larger image.
There is more information on how to use the new site in the help pages:
As the service is new we would very much like to hear from you about how you have got on using it. Please contact EDINA with any feedback you might have about this or any of our other services: Contact Us.
The existing Data Download will continue to be run alongside the new site till the end of the year to allow time for any documentation or practical guides to be changed.
You may have noticed that there are currently surveys running on all the Digimap services. These surveys are there to give you the opportunity to help us improve the service; we want your views to help shape the future of Digimap.
There is also another reason we are asking these questions; in the current economic climate, JISC will be shortly undertaking a detailed review of all the geo-services they fund including Digimap. It is very important that you have your say about any of these services that you use as your responses will contribute to this process.
We thank all of you who have responded to this survey; last year the results were fed back into the service and many of the comments were very valuable in helping us decide future directions. It is due to your feedback last time that we have included new features such as the Annotation Tools and prioritised redevelopment of the Data Download interface. Our aim is to do the same again this time and we have given more space to finding out what you want us to do next in the questions.
For those of you that are finding the survey an inconvenience we do apologise, however we hope you understand our reasons for making it as noticeable as possible. Due to good response rates for the Ordnance Survey Collection and Historic Digimap we now allow users to ignore the survey straight away. There is still a short time delay on the Marine and Geology services to make sure people take the time to read what we are asking them to do.
Booking is now open for the EDINA Geoforum Event on the 20th of June at the National Railway Museum, York. All the details including a provisional programme are on the website: http://edina.ac.uk/events/geoforum2012/
This free event will provide an important opportunity for anyone who supports geographic services, data and software to find out what EDINA is doing with Digimap and our other geo-services.
There will also be representatives from our data suppliers, partner institutions and some of the major GIS software vendors present. The event will a be a great way to get yourself up-to-date with what is happening with maps and geospatial data in Higher and Further Education.
