Digimap Data: New datasets coming in the New Year

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

The new Ordnance Survey Licence includes some new and very interesting datasets for the Digimap service. We have already added OS Terrain 5, Ordnance Survey’s most detailed digital terrain model and contour data to the the Data Download facility. The other new datasets will require some additional effort to add into the service but we should have them available to download early in the new year. These new datasets are as follows:

OS MasterMap ITN Urban Paths

Routing information for walkers and cyclists in towns and cities.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

OS MasterMap Sites LayerOS MasterMap Sites Layer

Identifies areas as being in categories such as schools, hospitals, transport facilities etc. The data also highlights access points to the sites and routing destinations for more accurate travel distances.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

Points of Interest

Over 4 million points of interest classified into 3 tiers; 9 groups, 52 categories and 616 classes. The points of interest include accommodation, eating and drinking, commercial services, attractions, sport and entertainment, education and health, public infrastructure, manufacturing and production,retail, and transport.

Please note that Points of Interest data is made available under slightly different terms to the other Digimap Ordnance Survey datasets. Please see the EULA and FAQs for further details.

More Info from Ordnance Survey…

EDINA has had many requests for these datasets, especially the Urban Paths so we are very pleased to be able to offer them to you. We also intend adding some of these datasets to Digimap Roam so that they can be added to the maps you view and print as well.

Please contact the EDINA help desk if you want access to the datasets mentioned above before they are made available in the Data Download service:

  • Phone: 0131 6503302
  • Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

EDINA Geo at GeoDATA London Showcase 2014

ecls/ / Digimap News, Training & Events

Last week EDINA Geodata Services were exhibiting at the GeoDATA Showcase 2014 event in London. This was our second time to exhibit at this event which is aimed primarily at the commercial end of the GI industry covering current data and technology topics. This follows on from other events in the series as described previously on the GoGeo Blog.

EDINA Geo stand at GeoDATA 2015
EDINA Geo stand at GeoDATA 2015

A summary of the talks can be found online.

We had a small stand, but the positive responses we got from visitors was very encouraging: from students who are currently using Digimap in their studies, to the lecturer in a university who said that Digimap was a great resource and essential to his teaching. Even more encouraging was the number of delegates and staff on other stands, with successful careers in the GI industry, who came up and said that they had used Digimap during their studies and it was a vital to their degree. It’s good to know that the future generations in the GI industry have the expectation that they will have easy access to high quality geospatial data, readily available from Digimap (at least while they are in education!).

We talked to delegates from a wide range of industries including environmental consultancies, government, data providers, local councils, defence and education as well as visiting and talking to many of the other exhibitors. We got a lot of useful feedback on what we’re doing and ideas for what we could be doing in the future including potential opportunities for collaboration. Of particular interest to delegates was the Fieldtrip GB app we were demonstrating which is a mobile data collection platform – especially once the magic word ‘free’ was mentioned, and also that there is an Open version available on Github.

Mince pies and mulled wine near the end were a welcome break from a long day, so busy that we didn’t actually get a chance to attend any of the talks, many of which looked very interesting, however it was a very useful event to attend. We look forward to next year’s event on the 3rd December 2015.

OS Terrain 5 added to Digimap Data Download

ecls/ / Digimap News

We have now added Ordnance Survey’s most detailed terrain data to the Data Download section of Digimap. OS Terrain 5 is created from the same source as the Ordnance Survey’s aerial imagery, meaning that it is kept up-to-date and works very well with the OS MasterMap® data.

OS Terrain 5 DTM and Contours
© Crown Copyright and Database Right 2014. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

OS Terrain 5 Contours, as the name suggests, have a 5 metre interval and the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) is on a 5 metre grid. The OS Website states the data has a good accuracy, typically exceeding 2 metres RMSE (not more than 2 metres different from the real world) with particular emphasis on significant  landscape features such as roads, railways, slopes, quarries and lakes.

From Digimap’s Data Download the you can take up to 400 5 by 5 km tiles of OS Terrain 5 in a single download.  The contour data is available in Shapefile or GML format and the DTM data is available as in ASC (Ascii Grid) format.

This new dataset has been included in Digimap due to the new licence agreement (see the previous blog post for more details). The other datasets included in the new licence, Urban Paths, MasterMap Site layer and Points of Interest data should be added into the service in the new year.

New Ordnance Survey Digimap Licence Agreement

ecls/ / Access, Digimap News, New Features

We are pleased to announce that a new Ordnance Survey licence agreement for Digimap is now available.

The new End User Licence Agreement (EULA) can be viewed in the Digimap Help Pages. As part of the new licence arrangements, end users need to agree to the EULA to access the Ordnance Survey data through the Digimap Service. Initially this will need to be done every time you access the collection via a popup after you select an application, however we are working on a new registration system that will mean you only need to do this once.

There is also an updated list of FAQs for the licence.

However, if you have any questions relating to the licence please do not hesitate to contact the Digimap support team.

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

What’s changed in the new agreement?

See below for key changes. Supplementary information is available from the EULA, the Ordnance Survey website and the EDINA helpdesk.

1. The following new products have been introduced to the Digimap Ordnance Survey collection under the new licence:

  • OS MasterMap® Integrated Transport Network Layer™ (ITN) Layer Urban Paths Theme.
  • OS MasterMap® Topography Layer will also contain the Sites Layer.
  • OS Terrain® 5, introduced as the new high resolution height dataset, replacing Land-Form PROFILE®.
  • PointX Points of Interest (PoI).

These will be made available through the Digimap service as soon as possible.

2. Changes to image publication size restrictions for external use

Image publication size restrictions have changed significantly with many being removed. Please refer to the Your Obligation/Restrictions section of the EULA, specifically Clause 5.1.4 and 5.2.

3. Public sector data sharing rights

In certain situations, it is now possible for you to share Digimap Ordnance Survey data with government departments and for government departments to share their Ordnance Survey data with you. For further details please see FAQs 27 & 28 in Licence FAQ section and consult the EULA Clause 4.

4. Authorised Data Handler

Where a Digimap Authorised User needs to use Ordnance Survey data in a secure data service, the new Digimap Licence now permits that via a separate Digimap Data Handler Agreement. Please see EULA Clause 3.1.4.

5. Educational navigation product/service

For Educational Use, you are now permitted to build Educational navigation apps. See the EULA, Clause 3.4 for the scope of what is permitted.

6. Use of YouTube and Twitter

You may now publish Ordnance Survey data, in line with strict terms detailed in EULA Clause 5, on YouTube and Twitter.

7. There is a change in the copyright notice that must be included on any maps

You must include the following acknowledgements on any display or reproduction of the Ordnance Survey Licensed data:

© Crown Copyright and Database Right [insert date]. Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence)

Where the date to be inserted should be the current year.

For HE institutions:

If you are responsible for your HE institution subscribing to Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection you should already have received an email from Jisc Collections detailing how your institution can agree to the new Sub-Licence. Full details can be found on the Jisc Collections website.

If you have any further questions then please contact the Digimap Support team:

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

 

 

Visualising OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute in AutoCAD Map 3D and InfraWorks

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

Update 12/02/2015: The contents of this blog post have been moved to the Digimap Help system and can be found at the following location (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#autocad/building_height_attribute/bha_in_autodesk.htm

For an overview of Building Height Attribute please see the following page (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#bha/bha.htm

InfraWorks visualisation
OS MasterMap® 1:2,000 Raster draped on top of OS Terrain™ 50, with buildings from OS MasterMap® Topography Layer extruded on top using Building Height Attribute data.

Visualising OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute in QGIS

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

Update 12/02/2015: The contents of this blog post have been moved to the Digimap Help system and can be found at the following location (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#qgis/building_height_attribute/bha_in_qgis.htm

For an overview of Building Height Attribute please see the following page (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#bha/bha.htm

QGIS 3D visualisation with trees
OS VectorMap® Local Raster draped on top of OS Terrain™ 50, with buildings from OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute and Positioned Non Coniferous Trees extruded on top

 

OS MasterMap® now available in File Geodatabase format from Digimap

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

To get the most from OS MasterMap data it is usually best to convert it from its supplied format, GML, to a format better suited to the software you are going to use it in. For our CAD users Digimap has been offering the DWG format for several months (see previous blog post); now we are offering a format that makes the data easier to use in GIS software.

Although Shapefile is still the most commonly requested GIS format it cannot handle the large file sizes (over 2GB) that could be requested from the Data Download service; an area of 100km2 in an urban centre would exceed this limit.  We therefore turned to the File Geodatabase format that works in the two most commonly used GIS software applications, ArcGIS and QGIS. There is more information about Geodatabases on Wikipedia here: Wikipedia -ArcGIS Geodatabase

To select the File Geodatabase format, add some MasterMap to your basket in Data Download. Once in the basket you can click the down arrow in the Format column and change it from the default GML to File Geodatabase:

File Geodatabase in Data Dowload

Geodatabase formats are the recommended formats  for use in ArcGIS software, being the most efficient for data storage and analysis. The format supports the use of .lyr files for styling the data and EDINA has provided some for the MasterMap data downloaded from Digimap.

The data can be added to a map in ArcGIS and QGIS in the usual way, though in QGIS you need to use Add vector layer –> Directory rather than a Database as you may assume.

Opening a Digimap File Geodatabase in QGIS

Styling information for both ArcGIS and QGIS has been provided by EDINA in .lyr and QML formats, these can be found at the bottom of Digimap’s help page for OS MasterMap. These representations give enough information to view the data in a style that OS MasterMap is commonly viewed in. The help page also contains a link to the official Ordnance Survey SLD styling information, please see the PDF that comes with the SLD files for information on how to use them.

There are help pages for adding styling information here:

If you require any help on using File Geodatabases from Digimap or any other dataset or format then please get in touch:

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

Visualising OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Building Height Attribute in ArcGIS and ArcGlobe

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

Update 12/02/2015: The contents of this blog post have been moved to the Digimap Help system and can be found at the following location (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#arcgis/building_height_attribute/bha_in_esri.htm

For an overview of Building Height Attribute please see the following page (link opens in a new window):

http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/webhelp/digimapgis/index.htm#bha/bha.htm

BHA data in ArcGlobe

Ordnance Survey Maps Updated: September 2014

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

Even though we update our mapping data throughout the year we still make a large number of changes over the summer.

Along with the general updates to MasterMap and a few other products the biggest change over the summer has been to swap the 1:10 000 Scale Raster maps to VectorMap Local Raster maps in Digimap Roam. Ordnance Survey have retired the 1:10 000 data, so we have removed it from the online maps, though you do still have a couple of options if you are a fan of the product:

  1. You can view the VectorMap Local data styled to look like the 1:10 000 maps at two zoom levels in Roam; remember that on the Map Content tab you can remove the contours for a very close representation of the mapping.
  2. We still make the 1:10 000 data available in Digimap’s Data Download interface, and will continue to do so for at least this academic year.

The table below details all of the latest changes we have made showing the currency dates of all Ordnance Survey datasets in Digimap.

Digimap Roam

Ordnance Survey product Data Currency Last updated in Roam
OS MasterMap® Topography Layer May 2014 July 2014
OS VectorMap® Local July 2014 September 2014
OS VectorMap® Local Raster July 2014 September 2014
1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster March 2014 March 2014
1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster June 2014 July 2014
Meridian™ 2 January 2014 March 2014
OS Terrain™ 50 July 2013 October 2013
OS VectorMap® District Raster September 2014 September 2014
Strategi® January 2014 March 2014
1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster June 2014 September 2014
MiniScale® January 2014 February 2014

Data Download

Ordnance Survey product Data Currency Last updated in Data Download
OS MasterMap® Integrated
Transport Network™ (ITN) Layer		 May 2014 September 2014
OS MasterMap® Topography Layer May 2013 September 2014
OS MasterMap® Topography Layer Raster June 2013 October 2013
Backdrop Mapping
* 1:10 000 Scale Raster June 2013 October 2013
OS Street View® April 2014 April 2014
1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster March 2014 March 2014
OS VectorMap® Local Raster July 2014 September 2014
OS VectorMap® District Raster September 2014 September 2014
1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster June 2014 July 2014
1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster June 2014 June 2014
MiniScale® January 2014 January 2014
Land and Height Data
* Land-Form PROFILE® November 2009 September 2011
* Land-Form PROFILE® DTM November 2009 September 2011
OS Terrain™ 50 July 2014 September 2014
OS Terrain™ 50 DTM July 2014 September 2014
* Land-Form PANORAMA® November 1993 September 2011
* Land-Form PANORAMA ® DTM June 2006 September 2011
Vector Data
OS VectorMap® Local July 2014 September 2014
OS VectorMap® District September 2014 September 2014
Meridian™ 2 January 2014 February 2014
Strategi® January 2014 February 2014
Boundary and Location Data
Boundary-Line™ May 2014 May 2014
Code-Point® August 2014 September 2014
Code-Point® Open August 2014 September 2014
Code-Point® with polygons April 2014 July 2014
OS Locator™ May 2014 May 2014
1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer June 2014 June 2014

* Land-Form PANORAMA®, PROFILE® and 1:10 000 Scale Raster products have been withdrawn by Ordnance Survey and are no longer updated.

Other Updates

Remember there have also been substantial changes made to the Geology and Marine data holdings in recent months:

Please also note that there are a lot more formats available than before so you may not have to convert the data after you have downloaded it:

It is now easier to see which formats are available for the data product you are downloading and change it if you need to, this blog post shows you how:

Please let us know if you have any questions about the new data or any other changes and additions to the Digimap service

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

 

Digimap Download Basket Updates

ecls/ / Digimap News, Help, New Features

We have updated all the new style Download interfaces in Digimap to make it easier to change the options for the data you have selected. When you have added some data to your basket you can now see more clearly what can be changed; the version (date and style), the format and the layers.

New Download Basket

Where these options are highlighted in blue with a ▼ next to them you can click them and get a drop down menu with the alternatives.

New Download basket with open menu

Make the changes you need, add a name,  then click on the Request Download button to order your data.

 

We have also made a slight change to the Product Information pages for some of the data products too.  Where the data is available on tiles you can now click a Show Grid button to see the tile outlines on the map.  When you make a selection on the map you will get all the grid tiles that are partially or entirely within your orange selection area.

How to View a Grid in Data Download

This feature is particularly useful for data products like the 1:10,000 and 1:25,000 scale geology data and the Marine HydroView Charts, where the data isn’t a continuous coverage and your selected area may contain no tiles. When you click the Show Grid button it will also automatically open the menu from the right of the map which allows you to change the grid shown or switch it off.

Remember, you open the Product Information panels by clicking on the blue Info links in the list of data products to the left of the map.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these changes or anything else:

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