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
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 have created a video that explains what Digimap is and what it can be used for. Very useful for showing to people who might not see how the service could be relevant for their work.
As lots of people are currently working on projects and dissertations we thought we’d share a few tips on using the OS MasterMap data from Digimap.
NOTE: MasterMap Download will be temporarily unavailable as part of the ‘At Risk’ period on Monday the 22nd of August. It will also be unavailable for about an hour on either Wednesday 24th or Thursday the 25th of August as well. This is to allow for some essential hardware maintenance on the server that houses the Database. We are really sorry for any inconvenience this causes.
The MasterMap data available will be updated as part of our annual data refresh at the beginning of September. If you need the 2010-2011s data then please order in advance of Monday the 22nd to ensure you don’t get caught up with the maintenance.
Downloading the Data
Remember that if you just want MasterMap as a background map you can use the 1:1000 or 1:2000 Raster versions of the data. This is available from the Data Download facility:
Once you have downloaded your MasterMap Data you will most likely need to convert it into a format that your GIS can use. There are three main options to do this, InterpOSe, OSM2MIF and Productivity Suite, see the following link for more information:
All our YouTube videos are now available under the Creative Commons licence. This means that you can copy, distribute and create derivative works from them if you give us credit. The videos are now available in the YouTube video editor so you can use them to help other users or show people what you have learned to do.
For information on what the Creative Commons licence means and how to edit the videos within YouTube go to this web page:
We have been having a play around with the new annotation tools in Digimap Roam here at EDINA, and have come up with a few things you might like to try.
Firstly, you will have no doubt been adding many new features to maps but have you tried taking some away?
This is the original map area, a MasterMap map showing some large farm buildings to the left of the original farm house. If you had some information about how the area looked prior to their construction you could recreate a map form the past.
The map on the right shows the area after a large green polygon has been drawn over the building area. Make sure you select an appropriate line width and style for the map, and remember to set the opacity to maximum. You needn’t stop there though, you could add buildings on top of the green polygon representing those that had existed previously.
You can also use the annotation tools for some other neat tricks. The image below shows how you can trace around existing features, a car park in this case, and use the measurement tool to work out its area. By making the polygon fully transparent you can then print out your result without obscuring the original features.
Finally you can use multiple lines and polygons, annotated with text to build up complex new features on the map. The example below shows a proposed new airport in the Thames Estuary:
EDINA has been asked to post the following request for assistance from Ordnance Survey regarding the usability of particular datasets. Please follow the links below if you can help.
You may remember a similar survey being conducted in June 2010. This latest survey refers to different datasets.
Hello,
My name is Michael Brown and I work for the Ordnance Survey research department. My work includes the development and application of methods to improve the usability of OS products. I am currently exploring the use of questionnaires to evaluate the usability of our products and guide their further development. If you have any experience of the following Ordnance Survey products please follow the links provided and complete the questionnaire. Each should only take a few minutes to complete, and I would appreciate it if you could complete as many as you can.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Thank you for your time.
Dr. Michael Brown
Usability Specialist
Research, L1F2, Ordnance Survey
Adanac Drive, SOUTHAMPTON, United Kingdom, SO16 0AS
michael.brown@ordnancesurvey.co.uk
Ordnance Survey is currently promoting the GeoVation Challenge with a particular emphasis on the use of OS OpenData. EDINA’s Digimap OpenStream service, providing access to a Web Map Service (WMS) offering OS OpenData products, is available free of charge and can be used to enter the GeoVation Challenge! You just need a .ac.uk email address to register online. Read on for details of the innovation awards funding and prize money.
The current Challenge is “How can we improve transport in Britain?” Check the GeoVation Challenge website for further details. The challenge is open until 12.00 noon on 11 February 2011. If you have a great idea that uses geography to address the challenge, you could win a slice of £150,000 to help make it happen, funded by the Ideas in Transit project. There is also a share of £10,000 for the idea that demonstrates the best use of OS OpenData. The Challenge is open to UK residents 18 and over.
