Category: Of Interest

Aerial Imagery Data available by Year

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

You can now search and download the imagery data from Aerial Digimap by the year it was flown.

This allows you to be sure that you are downloading only the latest data, but it also allows you to download multiple images for the same location taken on different dates. We currently have data from 1998 through to 2016, with more English and Welsh images coming for 2016. When you are in Aerial Download you can see the extents of each year using the Show Availability Grid tool on the right side of the map as shown in the image above.

There is a table below detailing how many 1x1km images there are for each year, with the majority coming from 2013 to 2016, but some of the older images will be very useful to compare to the newer ones where they overlap:

Year Number of Images
1998 165
2000 855
2001 891
2002 75
2003 11
2005 423
2006 4,620
2007 7,799
2008 5,757
2009 25,066
2010 35,607
2011 18,642
2012 16,619
2013 54,534
2014 71,404
2015 81,378
2016 18,769

 

Here are two images of Lerwick taken 8 years apart:

Lerwick 2008 from Aerial Digimap
Lerwick 2008 from Aerial Digimap.
Lerwick 2016 from Aerial Digimap
Lerwick 2016 from Aerial Digimap.

As you can see there has been construction in the West of the area with new buildings and car parks added.

We hope that you find the ability to make this sort of comparison useful for your research. If you have any questions about this or any other aspects of the Digimap service then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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

OS MasterMap Building Height Data gets significant update

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Of Interest
new building height coverage
Building Height Coverage

Ordnance Survey have released nearly 5000 extra 5km squares of building height data, with the total coverage increasing from 2578 to 7302. Each square has at least one building with height attributes added, with most fully covered. We have added this data to Digimap’s Data Download facility allowing you easy access to the data you need.

The Building Heights data is available from Data Download in a range of formats created especially for Digimap users. The most straightforward to use are DWG, File Geodatabase and KML which can be viewed directly in CAD, GIS and Google Earth respectively. You can also take the data as a CSV list that can be joined to the attribute table of any existing MasterMap Building data you have, using the TOID identifier. This means that you don’t have to recreate your project work with new data if you have already spent a lot of time working on it; as long as the buildings still have a TOID in their attribute data you can add the height information to it.

The Building Heights data is ideal for anyone working with the MasterMap data in 3D and has a range of applications in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Environmental Modelling, Archaeological Reconstructions and many more different disciplines. Here are a couple of examples:

OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours
OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours

 

3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Height Attribute
3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Heights Data

 

Digimap comes of age

ecls/ / Digimap News, Of Interest

Those with long memories will remember the launch of Digimap on 10th January 2000.  This means that the service has just turned 18!happy-birthday

Much has changed since then, with a move from a single mapping application to “lite” and advanced versions through to the recently updated Roam mapping application available today. Changes in web mapping technology have moved on apace, licensing has developed considerably, the range of data available within Digimap has expanded and the number of users and range of uses has increased exponentially.  Digimap has enjoyed many ringing endorsements over the years and EDINA will continue to ensure that Digimap offers value and benefit to the academic sector.  Happy Birthday Digimap!

How Carto has changed since 1998
Four versions of Digimap Carto, the advanced mapping tool. Technology now allows us to combine both simple and advanced functionality into a single application, which we now know as Roam!

 

Roam
2018: Ancient Roam from the Historic Digimap Collection

Additional vertical aerial imagery for Digimap

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Of Interest
Night time aerial imagery of London Waterloo and the London Eye
Night time aerial imagery of London Waterloo and the London Eye

We recently made available, through the Digimap Lidar Collection, a wealth of Vertical Aerial Imagery data captured by the Environment Agency for England.  The Environment Agency has been capturing vertical aerial imagery since 2006 on a project by project basis, so the coverage is not continuous across England. Availability grids for each year of data are available in the Lidar Download application. Data is available in some locations for multiple dates where the location has been surveyed on more than one occasion.

Some of the imagery was captured at night time giving an insight in to the effects of urban light pollution.

Data format

The data is supplied in the raster ECW (enhance compressed wavelet) format, which should be readable by most modern GIS and image processing software.  The data is tiled and tile sizes range from 1km x 1km to 5km x 5km and the resolution of the data ranges from 10cm to 50cm. There are three types of imagery available:

  • True colour – red, green, blue (RGB)
  • Near Infra-Red (NIR)
  • 4-band (RGBN)
RGBN aerial imagery of Spurn Head in Humberside
RGBN aerial imagery of Spurn Head in Humberside

Access

Lidar download is available to all institutions that subscribe to Aerial Digimap, meaning that subscribing institutions now have access to another detailed aerial imagery dataset.

For information on subscribing to Aerial Digimap, please see the subscription page.

 

If you have any questions about the new data or Digimap please contact us:

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

Mapathons

ecls/ / Of Interest

On a recent visit to the University of Exeter the Digimap team learned of their regular Mapathon sessions.  Dr Damien Mansell from the University of Exeter’s Department of Geography has kindly written a short piece about their mapathons for this blog:

Logo_geo_hosts_missingmapsThe second week of November was an important one for Geographers and Geography departments around the world. Not only was it Open Street Map Geography Awareness Week but on the 15th of November it was also GIS day. Both initiatives are international forums to develop interest and understanding of the subject, the technology of Geographical Information Systems, showcase applications, raise public awareness of the significance of place and encourage collaborative mapping. To celebrate, the University of Exeter Geography department hosted a Missing Maps Mapathon. The mapathon collaborates with British Red Cross and Humanitarian Open Street Map Team to map an area where humanitarian organisations are trying to meet the needs of vulnerable people. This mapathon was mapping the Kurigram District in Bangladesh in order to effectively implement disaster risk reduction activities, to enhance resilience to future floods. During the 2 hour mapathon which included wine and pizza, The University of Exeter volunteers managed to make 2,272 map edits which included 2,035 buildings and 1,134 km of roads. The humanitarian aid projects continues at Exeter and we encourage you to host a mapathon for yourselves! http://www.missingmaps.org/host/

mapathon

Images copyright Dr Damien Mansell/University of Exeter

New Digimap Roam for all Collections

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

On 30th November 2017, we released Beta versions of our new Roam mapping application for all Digimap Collections. Log in to Digimap and click on each Collection to find the link to each new Roam:

New Geology Roam

The functionality of the new application remains the same, but we hope you agree that the updated look is easier to use.

Most importantly, BOTH versions of Roam (new and old) will run in parallel for an extended period of time to give users the opportunity to get used to the new interface. We will review this at the beginning of March 2018 with a view to establishing a date for withdrawal of the old application.

New Aerial Roam showing the London Eye
New Aerial Roam showing the London Eye

Known Issues

All applications have undergone thorough testing, but there are still a few issues that we working on, for example some elements can be slow using Internet Explorer. If you spot anything that is not behaving correctly, please report this to us.

We encourage you to try the new beta versions and we welcome any feedback you have.

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

Beta version of OS Roam now available

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

On 3rd October 2017, we released a Beta version of a new Roam mapping client for Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection.  OS Roam – Beta is available next to the existing version, simply log in to the Digimap service and select Ordnance Survey Collection to view the new beta version:

OS Roam - Beta

Whilst the functionality remains the same, we hope you agree that the look and feel of the interface is more modern. The majority of functions are available from a new menu panel down the left hand side, which is hidden by default, maximising the area available for the main map element.

There are some issues we are aware of in this version, which we are working on, for example, some elements can be slow using Internet Explorer and Edge.

New versions of the Roam applications in all other collections will be available in due course. Both new and old versions will run side by side for an extended period of time to give users the opportunity to get used to the new interface.

We would encourage you to try the beta version and we welcome any feedback you have.

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

Webinar series for Autumn 2017

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

We are pleased to announce a new webinar series for Digimap over the coming months.  These short sessions are free to attend and are available to any Digimap user, whether staff, student or researcher.  You will need to register to attend each webinar. Bookings will open a couple of weeks before each webinar is scheduled. The majority of the webinars will be recorded and made available via our Digimap YouTube channel for those who were unable to attend.

All webinars will run from 13:00-13:30.

Previous webinar recordings, along with slides and Q&A transcripts can be viewed on the webinar materials page.

Coming soon: New Roam for Digimap

ecls/ / Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest

As mentioned at Geoforum earlier this year, we’re currently working hard on a new version of Digimap Roam. The new-look application will bring Digimap Roam, the online mapping tool in the Digimap family, bang up to date with the latest web technologies available. Whilst the functionality will remain the same, the look and feel of the interface will be more modern. The majority of functions will be available from a new menu panel down the left hand side which is hidden by default maximising the area available for the main map element. By utilising the latest technologies we will be able to add new functionality and make further enhancements to the application in the future.

The new interface makes further improvements to the experience on mobile devices, an area where we’re seeing an increase in usage across the service. A mock up of how the new Geology Roam interface might look is included below to give you an idea of the proposed layout and styling:

Mockup of the new Geology Roam interface
Mockup of the new Geology Roam interface

Currently we are on target to launch the new interface early in the first semester of the 2017-2018 academic year, but we will post progress updates on this blog as the new interface approaches completion. There will be a phased release with the new Roam applications with the Ordnance Survey Collection being first in line.

We appreciate that you may have teaching or lecture materials that may require updating as a result of this change in interface, so we will run all the existing Roam applications alongside the new versions so you can get up to speed with the new interface whilst the existing versions are still available. At the moment we anticipate running both versions in each Collection side by side until at least the end of the year. During this period we would welcome any comments and feedback that you may have.

As ever, if you have any questions about the new Roam, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Huge Digimap Land-Line data archive (1999-2006) released

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

Today we have made a huge amount of archived Land-Line data available to download from Digimap. You access the data through the Data Download application in the Digimap: Ordnance Survey Collection.  Land-Line was the pre-cursor to the OS MasterMap Topography Layer, and was the most detailed topographic mapping available from Ordnance Survey at the time. The archive released consists of annual snapshots of the whole of Great Britain from 1999 to 2006. This data will be vital for researchers who are undertaking longitudinal studies,  examining how areas have changed over time.

Land-Line.Plus showing Edinburgh's Quartermile area from 1999
Land-Line.Plus showing Edinburgh’s Quartermile area from 1999
OS MasterMap showing Edinburgh's Quartermile area from 2017
OS MasterMap showing Edinburgh’s Quartermile area from 2017

The data can be found in the Withdrawn Datasets category in the Data Download interface and is currently available in its original tiles and format.

Land-Line download location

Land-Line comes on 500m, 1km and 5km tiles depending on whether the area is Urban, Rural or Moorland.  It is supplied in National Transfer Format (NTF) which was the standard format of the time. We have put together a short help page that explains how to import this data in to common GIS and CAD applications which may be of use for anyone unfamiliar with this format of data.

IMPORTANT:  Between 2001 and 2006 Ordnance Survey carried it’s Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) programme. This means that there will be discrepancies in the positions of features on these maps and the OS MasterMap data: Read more on PAI

The Land-Line data that we have made available significantly bolsters the amount of detailed topographic data that is available for download from Digimap. The most detailed topographic mapping currently available from Digimap, OS MasterMap Topography Layer, is available for download going back to 2007. The addition of Land-Line data to Digimap means that users now have access to download the most detailed topographic mapping data for Great Britain going back a further eight years to 1999.

We hope you find this new addition of recent historic data useful, if you have any questions about the data please contact us:

  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk