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
This summer our cartographic team have been busy working on a new style for OS MasterMap Topography layer. These are the maps displayed at the three most detailed zoom levels in Digimap OS Roam. The original style, created more than ten years ago, followed the official style published by Ordnance Survey and has undergone little change since its creation. Later this year Ordnance Survey are making significant changes to the underlying MasterMap data so we thought it was high time the cartography was refreshed to give it a more modern feel.
The design brief had three broad requirements:
make it look ‘nicer’!
tone down the colours to allow annotations to stand out more
use the same colours as OS VectorMap Local, the second most detailed data product
The images below show the original and new styling for a number of areas which highlight the improvements that have been made in both urban and rural areas.
Changes to styling in urban areas:
The colours in urban areas have been muted, removing the large areas of yellow and making ‘unclassified’ land appear with hatching rather than as blank areas on the map.
Improvements in text styling:
Text labels have been updated to emphasise building names and reduce the size of the labels for named urban areas.
Updated rural styling:
Styling in rural areas with mixed land use is a challenge as there are multiple types which need to be conveyed to the user. We have increased the number of shades of green and improved the symbol spacing and placement in order to improve the appearance of these areas. Additionally we have changed the fill colour for tracks allowing them to be more easily distinguished from paved roads.
Updated foreshore styling:
Foreshore areas now display using the yellow ‘sand’ colour, making them far easier to visualise.
We hope you like the new style, however the original style can still be accessed from the Basemap menu in OS Roam:
If you have any questions about the updates or Digimap please contact us:
We are now at the start of a new academic year and Digimap has new licence agreements in place for the Ordnance Survey, Geology and Historic Map and Data Collections. You may have noticed already that you have been asked to agree to the licence again when you logged in. This is because some of the terms are different and you are required to agree to these new terms prior to accessing the data within the service.
When you login you will notice the Licence Agreements button at the top right of the home page.
Clicking on this will allow to you to view the licences you have agreed to and to agree to those you have not yet agreed to.
If a Collection has a new licence, the applications (e.g. Roam and Data Download) in that Collection will also appear grey. By trying to access an application which has a new licence, you will automatically be taken through the process of agreeing to it if you have not yet done so.
All you need to do is accept the licence and restate your purpose for using the service (which may or may not have changed since you agreed to the previous licence) and you will have access to the service once more.
If you have any questions or need any help or guidance have a look at the Agreeing to Licences for Digimap Collections section half way down the following help page:
The new look home page we told you about in the last blog post, has now been launched.
Along with the fresh new look for the start of the new academic year we have also updated the registration and licence agreement pages. The structure of the pages and access to the applications has not been changed, so you should have no problem navigating around the page.
Please let us know if you have any questions or need any more information:
We have been hard at work developing a fresh new look for Digimap which we will be launching for the new academic year. Here is a sneak preview, though please note that nothing has been finalised just yet:
The operation of the page remains the same and the layout is almost identical, we have just given it a modern fresh look. We hope you like it!
If you have any questions or require any more information then please feel free to contact us:
A number of datasets have been updated in June 2016, all in the Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection. As well as updates to the 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 Colour Raster products (which are the digital versions of the ever popular Explorer and Landranger paper map series), this month we have also updated the relatively new OS Open Rivers dataset, an image of the full network is shown on the right hand side. This is the first update to the dataset which was first released in March 2015. Users should note that this dataset is still a Beta version, so changes to the specification and/or delivery method are still possible.
OS Data Download:
Product Name
OS Publication Date
OS MasterMap ITN Layer Urban Paths Theme
April 2016
Code-Point
May 2016
1:250,000 Scale Colour Raster
June 2016
1:25,000 Scale Colour Raster
June 2016
1:50,000 Scale Colour Raster
June 2016
OS Open Rivers
June 2016
*1:50,000 Scale Gazetteer
May 2016
* Note: this is the last update to 1:50,000 Scale Gazetteer as Ordnance Survey have announced that they are retiring this product. Users are advised to use OS Open Names instead. Whilst the data will still be available to download through Digimap, this product will no longer be updated to reflect changes in the real world.
We have recently added detailed, large scale, contemporary mapping to Ancient Roam allowing users to compare side by side historic mapping with detailed modern mapping.
The detailed modern mapping is visible at all zoom levels in both the 1-up and 2-up views. The most detailed mapping uses the new OS OpenMap – Local product, which is the most detailed Open Data product available from Ordnance Survey and can be downloaded through the Digimap Ordnance Survey collection. We further enhanced the most detailed mapping to include the additional features from OS VectorMap District:
Contours
Spot heights
Medical centres
Police stations
Heritage sites
Places of worship
The other products we have added are OS StreetView and OS VectorMap District Raster to provide a comprehensive set of contemporary map data suitable for all zoom levels in Ancient Roam.
We hope you find the new data useful, if you have any questions about the updates or Digimap please contact us:
As many of you may be aware, the number of users of the Digimap service using CAD systems has increased considerably over the years. As this user base has grown we have endeavoured to make the data we provide as easy to use as possible in these systems. As part of this effort to continually improve the service we offer, we have made some considerable enhancements to the products we offer for use in CAD systems.
Part of the problem is that there is a proliferation of systems in use under the general banner of ‘CAD’ systems, including AutoCAD, Revit, Rhinoceros, Vectorworks to name a few. A common factor between these systems is that they can accept vector data in DWG format, however, the way that DWG data is handled can vary between systems.
A number of our products in DWG format were loading into CAD systems but some were not correctly spatially referenced. This meant that although the data looked fine and worked perfectly well on its own, but it was difficult to overlay or integrate it with other datasets. We have now fixed this issue, so that it is possible to overlay common products together much more easily.
To accompany the DWG map data we also provide Digital Terrain Model (DTM) data to allow you to create a landsurface to loacte buildings and infrastructure on. In the past we only provided the OS Terrain 5 DTM in a format that was not so easily used in some CAD systems. To remedy this, we are now delivering OS Terrain 5 DTM in the XYZ format that can be used in most CAD systems.
These are the Changes we have made:
All data available as DWG should overlay correctly where appropriate in AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil, Revit and Rhinoceros.
All data has the correct Spatial Reference (British National Grid) and Units (metres).
OS Terrain 5 Contours are available as 3D Polyline data which is suitable for creating surfaces in Revit and Rhinoceros 5.
OS Terrain 5 DTM is available in an XYZ format which can be used to create surfaces in AutoCAD and Rhinoceros 5.
OS MasterMap Sites Layer is now available in DWG.
OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours
We have updated our help pages in line with these changes and recommend that you consult the AutoCAD FAQ page which has further details for how you can load Digimap data in to common CAD packages.
We hope our CAD users find these changes useful but if you have any questions about using Digimap data in a CAD system please let us know. Similarly if you can provide us with any information about using Digimap data in a CAD system we would be very pleased to hear from you.
A number of datasets in the Ordnance Survey Collection have been updated in May this year. We’ve also made a number of improvements to some of the datasets that are popular for 3D modelling which will hopefully make it easier to use these datasets in CAD applications. The main changes are:
OS MasterMap Sites Layer now available in DWG and ESRI Shapefile format (previously it was only available in GML)
OS Terrain 5 DTM is now available in XYZ format for use in CAD applications
OS Terrain 5 Contours in DWG format are now provided as as 3D contours with the height of each feature set to the correct contour height
The data format help page has been updated to reflect these changes and is a good place to go if you are interested to see which datasets are available in a specific format.
The dataset updates are detailed in the tables below for OS Data Download and OS Roam:
OS Data Download:
Product Name
OS Publication Date
Boundary Line
May 2016
* OS Locator
May 2016
OS Terrain 5 Contours
April 2016
OS Terrain 5 DTM
April 2016
OS VectorMap Local Raster
April 2016
OS VectorMap Local
April 2016
OS Open Roads
May 2016
Code-Point Open
May 2016
* Note: this is the last update to OS Locator that will be supplied by Ordnance Survey who have announced that they are retiring this product. Users are advised to use OS Open Names instead. Whilst the data will still be available to download through Digimap, these products will no longer be updated to reflect changes in the real world.
