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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
EDINA has updated Geology Roam with a whole range of new data, allowing users access to nearly all the data available from Geology Download without needing to put it into GIS software. We have also updated the Active legend, so you can now order it by the Age of the Rocks on the map.
New Data
As you can see in the image above the most zoomed out levels now have the Offshore Geology data (DigRock250 and DigSBS250) allowing you to see the rocks and sea bed sediments around the coast of the United kingdom. We have also added in the most detailed onshore geological mapping from the British Geological Survey, the 1:10,000 and 1:25,000 scale maps (DiGMapGB-10 and DiGMapGB25). Please note that these datasets do not have national coverage, where they are not present there is a water mark on the map to inform you. As there is almost no overlap between these two large scale datasets EDINA has combined them into a single detailed geology layer.
Basemaps
To allow different datasets to be viewed at the same scale we have introduced the basemaps tab so that the geology data can be switched with the scale remaining the same. Adding the basemaps tab has also allowed us to introduce new ways of viewing the same data, with all the geology layers now viewable as both the Rock Unit e.g. Kimmeridge Clay Formation and Rock Type e.g. Mudstone.
The basemaps tab has allowed many datasets to be view at the same scale so in addition to the new geological data we have also added several extra types of data which provide information about the soil and hydrogeology of Great Britain. The Geological Indicators of Flooding; Permeability (Max and Min); 1:625,000 Scale Hydrogeology; along with Soil Strength, Texture and Calcium Carbonate content from the Soil Parent Material Data are now all available as basemaps.
Active Legend
Click image to enlarge…
The final change made to the Geology Roam interface has been to the Active Legends which now allow you to order the entries by their age. The ordering is based on the MAX_INDEX attribute in the geology data that allows you to order the Rock Units based on its oldest age.
The active legend still lets you rocks on the map by clicking on the legend and vice versa.
A full list of the products available in each view / scale can be found in the Geology Roam “How To Guide” here:
A number of datasets have been updated recently bringing them up to date with the most recent versions available from Ordnance Survey. All datasets are available to download using the Digimap Data Download application in the Ordnance Survey collection.
The table below lists all the datasets that have been updated and includes the OS release date:
Of particular note at this time is that Ordnance Survey have announced the withdrawal of the 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer and OS Locator products following the release of OS Open Names in March 2015.
The last product update for 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer will be June 2016.
The last product update for OS Locator will be May 2016
Following these releases Ordnance Survey will no longer supply, maintain or support the use of either OS Locator or 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer.
If you have any questions about the dataset updates or Digimap please contact us:
For this year’s GeoForum we were lucky enough to be in the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, now home to the University of Greenwich. Around 60 delegates enjoyed a programme of talks and presentations aimed at keeping them up-to-date with the maps and mapping technology available to higher education.
The day began with Professor David Maguire, Jisc Chair, Vice principle of the University of Greenwich, former chief scientist at Esri and an acknowledged expert in computer mapping, outlining his vision of the future of both Jisc and Geographic information science. There was emphasis in his talk about the need to incorporate the Cloud in both Jisc’s services and into the Geographic Data and software services.
The first full presentation of the day came from Christopher Wesson, one of the founding members of Ordnance Survey’s digital Cartographic Design team.
Christopher gave some background about Ordnance Survey and the data they are now creating. He then took us through eight key principles that used to create successful cartographic designs: User Requirements, Display Format, Visual Hierarchy, Simplicity, Legibility, Consistency, Accessibility and Good Composition.
Building a 3D Model
The Next presentation came from Jason Taylor, a technical tutor at Ravensbourne responsible for the production of physical models and prototypes. Jason took everyone through the step by step process of taking terrain data along with building foot prints and heights to create scale models of cityscapes.
The result of his work combined milling of MDF particle board and also 3D Printing of a miniature Millennium Dome. Nearly all of the data used in the production of the model came from Digimap (the details of the Dome’s shape came from a different source), and Jason highlighted the help pages as a great resource for helping him and his students begin to create their models.
The Ordnance Survey Licence
Emma Diffley, EDINA Geoservices Support team leader, then took the audience through the major changes made to the Digimap Licence for Ordnance Survey data.
This important presentation highlighted the main differences between this agreement and the one it replaced, showing that it is more permissive than before, and that there is now an End User Licence Agreement (EULA) which places emphasis on the individuals to ensure they are abiding by the terms and conditions.
Lunch
During the Lunch break we had presentations from Esri‘s Addy Pope about the ArcGIS Online service; from the CadCorp team who highlighted their free GIS data viewer, MapExpress, and their discounts for educational use; and finally from the British Geological Survey who highlighted their subsurface data and Groundhog website.
Digimap Update
After lunch the delegates were split into two groups with half doing the excursion while the other half was updated on the latest work going on with Digimap and the other Geoservices run by EDINA.
Guy McGarva, EDINA Geoservices Support, gave the Digimap Update presentation highlighting the past year’s achievements and the plans for the coming year. Much of the coming improvements are to do with improving access to the service for mobile devices and also to the data for CAD users. There are also a lot of new products and cartographic improvements to old products going into the Roam online mapping interfaces.
Guy also highlighted some future trends including better integration between services and a shift to delivering more training through interactive webinars rather than face-to-face training.
Fieldtrip GB
During the Fieldtrip GB excursion Ian Holmes, EDINA Geoservices Support, took the delegates through the process of designing a data collection form, deploying it to the groups mobile phones, collecting data points from around the Greenwich campus and then uploading the data and viewing it on a map. The entire process was carried out live for each group with the minimum of fuss, highlighting the mobile app’s usefulness for carrying out citizen science or group fieldwork.
We also found out about a few of the enhancements coming to the app, including:
more stable data management
the ability to longer and more complicated multi-page data entry forms
an entirely new version with OpenStreetMap data for use worldwide
the ability to upload your own maps or way-points to highlight where to collect data
Final Summary
We’d like to thank all the speakers and delegates at this years conference for taking part in a very successful event.
All the presentations throughout the day highlighted the changes in the world of digital mapping occurring right now. We hope that the changes highlighted in the Digimap Update presentation along with the rest of the planned at EDINA will mean the Digimap will continue to be relevant for it users and help them prepare for future work with maps and digital data.
Finally we’d also like to thank the University of Greenwich for providing a first class venue and event coordination team to ensure it was a memorable day.
The latest version of Ordnance Survey’s Boundary-Line data contains two new layers, Ceremonial Counties and Historical Counties.
Ceremonial Counties
This new layer in the Boundary-Line data represents the areas of England, Scotland and Wales that are represented by a Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant is the chief officer of the county and representative of the Crown; whenever the Queen visits an area she will be accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant.
This layer is very useful for those who want to make a map of Great Britain divided into its counties without all the complexities of Unitary Authorities, Districts and Boroughs. This is the layer to choose when making a map showing a more traditional view of Great Britain without making a historical view.
Historical Counties
The historic counties dataset shows the county boundaries in place in 1888 in England and Wales and 1899 in Scotland. The boundaries for England and Wales were derived from mapping from the National Archives dating from 1890. The Scottish boundaries are derived from maps as late as 1940.
This layer is very useful for those studying this time period and when combined with the ceremonial counties and modern the most up to date boundaries gives a good picture of how fluid the boundaries are over time.
Selecting Layers in Data Download
If you have the Boundary-Line data you need already but would like to add the new layers without downloading it all again then follow this useful tip. Once you have added the product to your basket click on the arrow in the layers column to pick and choose those that you want to take. See the image below:
You will then just receive these new layers and not all the others which you may already have or not need.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this or any other aspect of the service:
May has been a busy month for data updates in OS Data Download. Not only have we released Points of Interest, Urban Paths and MasterMap Sites Layer, but a number of other datasets have also been updated.
The latest version of Boundary-Line includes new datasets for Welsh Wards, Historical Counties, and Ceremonial Counties. Plus the data is now available in TAB format which is great news for MapInfo users. You can read more about these changes in this blog post.
The table below lists all the datasets that have been updated and includes the OS release date:
We are pleased to announce that the Points of Interest dataset from Ordnance Survey is now available to download through the Digimap Data Download application.
Points of Interest is a national dataset covering the whole of Great Britain and contains over 4 million different features. All features are supplied with location, functional information and addresses (where possible). Points of Interest has a three-level classification to assist customers in identifying the features or sets of features they require. This classification is explained in detail in chapter 3 of the official User Guide. The top level classification is given below:
Accommodation, eating and drinking
Commercial services
Attractions
Sport and entertainment
Education and health
Public infrastructure
Manufacturing and production
Retail
Transport
Please note:the copyright statement for Points of Interest is slightly different to the usual Digimap statement as the data is licensed from PointX by Ordnance Survey. The correct copyright statement that should be displayed with Points of Interest data is included below:
The data can be found in the Boundary and Location Data section in Data Download:
The data is provided in CSV format and uses the pipe character as the field separator. To load this in to GIS for visualisation on a map requires a couple of short steps to create a definition file so that the GIS application uses the correct data types for each field in the file. We have created instructions on how to do this in ArcGIS and QGIS:
A new MasterMap data layer is available to download that allows you to add an extra level of information to your maps. The Sites Layer shows boundaries for features such as schools, hospitals and other government property. The dataset currently contains the extents of over 40,000 important locations in Great Britain broken down in to seven themes, with more to be added in the future:
MasterMap Sites Layer includes access points, such as pedestrian gates and driveways, and routing points allowing the data to be fully integrated with other OS products including MasterMap Topography Layer and MasterMap Integrated Transport Network (ITN) layer. Sites Layer can be used for informed decision-making and spatial analysis, enabling users to answer questions such as: ‘how much of this health centre is at risk of flooding?’.
Ordnance Survey have published clear instructions on how to import the data, which is supplied in GML3 format, into common GIS packages in their Sites Layer Getting Started Guide.
If you have any questions about Sites Layer or Digimap please contact us:
We are pleased to announce that users can now download OS MasterMap Building Height Attribute data in file geodatabase format. The data consists of building polygons together with the building height attributes supplied by OS in the latest alpha release of their Building Height Attribute dataset (December 2014 at the time of writing).
This makes the process of visualising the data in 3D much simpler for the majority of GIS users. The file geodatabase format can be read by both QGIS and ArcGIS, including the new ArcGIS Pro, without the need for any complex data processing. Making the data available in file geodatabase format removes the need for users to download building features from OS MasterMap Topography Layer and then use the JOIN function in GIS to connect the Building Height Attribute data to the buildings.
The data is supplied on a 5x5km grid, so you may receive multiple separate geodatabases if your area covers multiple 5km grid cells, however it is easy to merge the datasets together using common GIS functions.
We hope this makes it much easier to use the data but we welcome any feedback you may have.
An introduction to the day from Professor David Maguire, Jisc Chair, Vice principle of the University of Greenwich, former chief scientist at Esri and an acknowledged expert in computer mapping and geographic information systems.
A talk given by Ordnance Survey about their cartographic principles and how they apply them when designing the visual representations for features on their maps.
A presentation given by architecture and design staff and students from Ravensbourne showcasing the physical models they have been producing using or inspired by Digimap maps and data.
A round-up of all the things you need to know about from the recently updated Ordnance Survey licence.
University of Greenwich Queen Anne Court
As well as these presentations we will have our data and software suppliers present to tell you about their new and up coming products such as OS Open Map data, BGS Groundhog & ArcGIS Pro. We will also be bringing you up to date with all the new developments at EDINA and taking you outside in the impressive grounds of the old Royal Naval College to have a look at some new developments with EDINA’s Fieldtrip App.
Finally there will be time for you to chat with people from all the other institutions about how they support and promote geospatial data and software, there are already over 50 people registered to attend with over 25 different institutions represented so far.
If you haven’t booked your place yet then please do so soon, places will be limited:
To allow different datasets to be viewed at the same scale we have introduced the basemaps tab so that the geology data can be switched with the scale remaining the same. Adding the basemaps tab has also allowed us to introduce new ways of viewing the same data, with all the geology layers now viewable as both the Rock Unit e.g. Kimmeridge Clay Formation and Rock Type e.g. Mudstone.
We’d like to thank all the speakers and delegates at this years conference for taking part in a very successful event.
