Category: Of Interest

Printing maps of GB from Digimap Roam

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

Since the addition of new print functions to Roam, it is now easier to print a map showing the whole of Great Britain.

Print Interface for getting a National View GB Map
Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2013
[Click to enlarge]
  •  Log in to Digimap and click on Roam in the Ordnance Survey Collection.
  • Use the slider bar in the upper right corner of the map to zoom in once to show the National View.  Don’t change the position of the map itself.
  • Click the Print button on the top toolbar (top right hand corner)
  • Set the print scale to 1:1.1 million (1:1100000)
  • Choose A0 portrait and an appropriate format from the drop-down lists (PDF will generate reasonably quickly)
  • Now click-and-drag the preview map directly upwards (north) so that Arbroath (shown on the east coast of Scotland) is at the very top edge of the preview map.
  • Click Generate Print File
  • The resultant file in PDF format will be around 2.9MB

 

If you prefer to use a different map product, you could use the following variations on the above instructions:

Print Interface for getting a Regional View GB map
Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2013
[Click to enlarge]
  • Zoom in twice on the map using the slider bar (to view the County View map). Again, don’t change the location of the map.
  • In the print interface, set your scale to 1:1,100,000 and your paper size to A0 portrait, as previously
  • Now drag the map northwards so that the town of Lauder sits just below the top edge of the preview map.
  • This file in PDF format will be around 11MB

 

 

 

 

These instructions may need some minor alterations depending on your monitor resolution. You may find you need to drag the map either a little more or a little less further north in order to see both Shetland and the Scilly Isles on your printed map.

 

Using Marine Roam to find interesting things beyond topography

ecls/ / Digimap News, Of Interest

Marine Roam is a fantastic service which provides access to SeaZone HydroSpatial data for the waters around Great Britain.  There are many applications for the data and the expanding offshore renewables sector, and associated research around it, immediately springs to mind.  However, did you know that you can use Marine Roam for some historical sleuthing?

70 years ago today, 27th march 1943,  HMS Dasher was sailing up the Firth of Clyde heading for Greenock.  HMS Dasher had been converted into an aircraft carrier and was home to 8 Swordfish and 2 Sea Hurricanes. The planes were being refuelled following landing practice when there was a series of massive explosions.  The ensuing fire could not be contained and the ship was abandoned. It sank just 6 minutes after the first explosion. While 149 seamen were recovered, 379 lost their lives.

Wrecks are marked in the HydroSpatial data and can be queried in Marine Roam.  It is a little tricky to find the wreck of HMS Dasher.  I knew it was situated in the Firth of Clyde, mid-way between Arran and the mainland, about 5 miles south of Little Cumbrae. However, the only wreck I could find was that of the Antares, a fishing trawler which sank in 1990 after its nets were apparently snagged by a submarine.  After a bit of hunting I found some strange boat shaped features, seemingly related to military wrecks which for the most part appear to have been sunk during exercises.  One of these marks the resting place of HMS Dasher. Below is a screenshot of the attribute information held in the HydroSpatial data about her.

 

Wreck of HMS Dasher in Marine Roam

You can log into Marine Roam and use the Info Tool to explore features on the map. Alternatively, you can download the data through Marine Download and load it into a GIS for further exploration.

So what other famous ship wrecks can you find in Marine Roam?  Why not post a comment with the coordinates of your favorite sea-floor find.

Much of the background information used in this blog post was taken from the fantastically detailed records available through the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland website.

Digimap is 13 Today!

ecls/ / Consultations, Digimap News, Of Interest

Digimap has become a teenager today, 10th January 2013. There have been some big changes to the service over the years, with interfaces coming and going and Ordnance Survey maps being joined by Historic (2005), Geology (2007), Marine (2009) and soon Environment (2013).

How Carto has changed since 2000
How Digimap Carto has changed since the service launched on the 10th of January 2000.

We’d really like to thank all our site reps and other institutional staff who have supported and promoted the service over the last 13 years.

Remember you can have your say about any of the Digimap Collections in the Impact Surveys available in the service and listed below.  Please fill one in to let us know how we are doing and help us improve the service for the future:

Digimap and ShareGeo Open Break Usage Records

ecls/ / Digimap News, Of Interest

November was a record month for the Digimap Service with over 2 million screen maps made by the four collections. Digimap Roam made over 1 million screen maps alone and also broke its record for the number of print maps generated, over 28,000.

Digimap Roam Screen Maps to November 2012

The number of files downloaded was also a record for Digimap with nearly 250,000 map tiles or files taken from the four collections. The Data Download facility for the Ordnance Survey Collection provided the bulk of these, over 190,000. Since the introduction of the new Data Download there has been a great deal more data supplied to staff and students but October and November have seen a huge spike.  This has also been achieved from a lower total number of orders showing how the changes made in the upgrade have greatly improved the efficiency of the process. It is now much easier to get all the data you need in a smaller number of orders.

Tiles Downloaded from Data Download, January 2000 to November 2012

On top of the downloads from the Digimap Collections, ShareGeo Open also had a record month. ShareGeo Open is a repository for open spatial data that promotes the sharing and re-use of spatial data in teaching and learning.

There were over 3400 downloads of datasets from the service, nearly double last November’s total. There are almost 200 different datasets available from the service, with the recent addition of wind farm locations for the UK proving popular. The most downloaded dataset for the past 6 months is the Postcode Areas file, made from the Code-Point Open data.

Save, Import & Export Annotations from Digimap Roam

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest
Save, Import and Export Annotations tools for Roam
From left to right: “View saved annotations”, “Save annotations”, “Import” and “Export”.

Recent enhancements to all Roam applications in Digimap (OS, Geology, Ancient and Marine) mean you can now save, import and export annotations. The new tools can be found under the ‘My Annotations’ set of tools on Annotations Toolbar.

The new Save function enables you to work on creating and editing annotations in more than one Digimap session. You can now save your work and come back to it another day. Hit the Save button to store your annotations and retrieve them any time by clicking the ‘View saved annotations’ button. Any annotations that you save in one application (e.g. OS Roam) can be opened in any other Roam client (e.g. Ancient Roam) you have access to. This is a great function that enables you to digitise a set of annotations based on one type of map, and then open them up in another Roam application to view on a different type of map. For example, you could use OS Roam to annotate a detailed map showing a proposed new building. You can then save those annotations and open them up in Geology Roam to view the geology underneath your proposed new building.

If you have a spatial dataset, you can now import it into any Roam application to view those features as annotations. This could be a dataset you have created in a GIS, downloaded from Digimap or another data provider, tracks or points surveyed using a GPS unit or a geocoded table of survey results. You can import Shapefiles, KML, GPX, CSV and GeoJSON datasets. Click the ‘Import’ button under ‘My Annotations’ on the toolbar and navigate to your dataset to import. This feature means you can quickly and easily visualise datasets that you have created or obtained from elsewhere on top of maps in any of the Roam clients.

Proposed Wind Farm locations dataset downloaded from ShareGeo Open (http://hdl.handle.net/10672/294) as a shapefile and imported into Roam as annotations.

In addition to importing, you can also export your annotations  in Shapefile, KML and GeoJSON formats by clicking on the “Export” icon on the My Annotations tools. These formats cover the most popular GIS and Web Mapping software packages, such as ArcGIS, Quantum GIS, Google Earth and OpenLayers.

For more information on using the Annotation Tool have a look at the “How to” help page here: How to use the Annotation Tools in Digimap Roam

NOTE:If you create annotations by tracing features on a Roam map you will need to credit any maps you go on to make using the annotations with the appropriate copyright statement. Any geographic data you generate from a map is called “derived data” and is still copyright to the creators of the original map.

The copyright statement is added automatically if you print the map from Roam, however you will need to add in the statement manually if you export annotations and use them in other software. The statement to include can be found in the Terms of Use for the service you are using, just click the link a the bottom right of the Roam interface.

New Digimap Case Studies

ecls/ / Digimap News, Help, New Features, Of Interest

We have been busy over the last few months collating a new set of case studies showing how the different Digimap collections are being used. There are 13 new examples covering subjects as diverse as Archaeology, Religious History, Palaeontology and Geochemistry, as well as more traditional subjects like Landscape Architecture.

Green Infrastructure Study of Cheltenham and Gloucester: David Green Digimap Case Study
Green Infrastructure Study of Cheltenham and Gloucester: David Green

The new case studies can be found in the Digimap Support pages along with the previous examples we have collected over the years:

New Digimap Case Studies

If you would like us to feature your work as a Case Study then please get in touch with us: edina@ed.ac.uk. We are especially keen to hear from those using Marine Digimap.

Digimap Carto: We need your help!

ecls/ / Consultations, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest, Service Availability

Digimap Carto has been making maps for nearly 13 years now, though it last received a major facelift in 2006. Although it is still well used the underlying technology is no longer a viable platform to develop on. It has simply become too difficult to maintain in today’s environment of almost monthly changes to web browsers and the Java Runtime  Environment.

How Carto has changed since 1998
Carto through the ages. All maps ©Crown Copyright

Thankfully these advances in browser technology, and our underlying GIS and web mapping software, mean that we can now provide a Carto like service without the Java applet. In 2013 we will be launching a replacement for Carto that will run directly in an up-to-date web browser and still include advanced functionality. Until the new interface is launched we will keep Carto running, please go here if you are having trouble getting it to work: Carto Notes

With work starting on the new advanced mapping application we would really like to know which functions you value most in Carto. We’d also like to hear your ideas for any new features you would like to see available. We can’t promise to include everything, but knowing what you want helps us to make informed decisions.

Please send your thoughts to: edina@ed.ac.uk

GeoVation Innovation in Transport Event

ecls/ / Of Interest, Training & Events

Ordnance Survey would like the academic community to know that the next GeoVation event on “Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport” will take place at the Royal Society of Arts, in London on 24 September 2012.

GeoVation Innovation in Transport

The event is brought to you by GeoVation and supported by Ordnance Survey, the Ideas in Transit project, Department for Transport, Technology Strategy Board and SBRI.

Details:

With rapid developments in social media technology, smartphone apps, open data, and volunteered geographic information, in a context of doing more with less and doing that sustainably, ‘Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport’ considers:

* The barriers to collaboration and user innovation in transport and how they can be overcome.
* How can real users’ needs be identified and addressed?
* How can open data be used effectively?
* How can business, government, communities and academia collaborate to create real value in improving transport?
* Collaborative consumption, creation and resourcing.
* Creating shared value and business model innovation in transport.

These and other topics will be explored by leaders and pioneers in their field through: keynote speeches, quick fire Pecha Kucha-like presentations, exhibition, and lively, interactive discussion with you, the participating audience, followed by an evening networking programme.

A list of the speakers can be found here:

“Exciting Speakers at our Innovation in Transport Event”

Register for the event here:

Eventbrite: “GeoVation – Collaboration and User Innovation in Transport”

Hutton’s Unconformity, pipelines and planning applications

ecls/ / Digimap News, Of Interest

Geologists and others with an interest in Hutton’s Unconformity might be interested in a statement by The Geological Society regarding a proposal to construct a pump house and pipeline 150m to the east of the SSSI area at Siccar Point:

The Geological Society – Proposal to construct a waste pipeline near Siccar Point, Berwickshire

You can see some photographs of Hutton’s Unconformity at Siccar Point by logging in to Geology Roam and searching for “Siccar Point”.  Zoom in to the largest scale map and click on the Geological Photos button above the top right hand corner of the map. Then click on the camera icons on the map to see each photograph.

Geology Roam showing photo of Siccar Point
Geology Roam showing photo of Siccar Point, the location of Hutton’s Unconformity

 


Geoforum 2012 Time-lapse Video

ecls/ / Digimap News, Of Interest, Training & Events

During Geoforum 2012 a camera was taking photos every minute. We used some very clever software to create this time-lapse video of the event.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLgSc5uUFvU[/youtube]

Thanks again to everyone who turned up to the event and helped make it so successful. If you weren’t able to attend or would like to remind yourself of what happened, the live blog recorded the main points of all of the presentations: Geoforum Live Blog