Data Updates: OS MasterMap and VectorMap District

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions

OS MasterMap Data Update

The MasterMap data in Digimap’s MasterMap Download has undergone its April update; the new data has a currency date of January 12th 2011. The data is available to download for new orders, re-orders of previous data, and as a Change-only Update (CoU) which provides only the changes to the data since it was downloaded.

CoU and Re-orders can be accessed from the Your Account page in MasterMap Download; simply select the order you want to refresh and use the CoU or Re-order (current data) buttons below the order list.

Please note that the OS MasterMap raster data (Tiff files) in Digimap’s Data Download are only updated once a year in September. You can read about these maps in a previous blog post here: MasterMap Background Maps

VectorMap District Beta Release

VectorMap District data has now been updated from the alpha release to beta in Data Download. You can read about the differences in a previous blog post here: VectorMap District beta release

The currency dates for all the different data products in Digimap’s Ordnance Survey Collection can be found on the following help page: Dates of Updates to Digimap

New Features in Digimap Roam

ecls/ / New Features

Measurement Tools:

Digimap Roam has new measurement tools that allow you to easily check the distance between two or more points and find out the area of a polygon you draw on the map.

Click on the Digimap Roam Measurement Tools Icon icon above the map to activate the tools.  Select Distance or Area then start clicking on the map to define your line or polygon; use a double click to finish.

Digimap Roam Measuring Tools
The new measurement tools in Digimap Roam

New Local Plus View:

Digimap Roam has also got a new zoom level to go with the measurement tools, bringing the total to 13.  The view, called Local Plus, is a more zoomed out view of the 1:50,000 colour raster maps found in the Local view. The image above uses this new view as well as the measurement tools.

The Local Plus view prints at 1:40,000 compared to 1:20,000 for the Local view.

The New Digimap Blog

ecls/ / Digimap News

This is the new Digimap blog and replaces our old Blogger site. From now on this will be one of the places that the Digimap team post news, information about updates and other useful things like tip and hints.  You can subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed:

http://digimap.blogs.edina.ac.uk/feed/

If you find a link to our old blog, please inform the administrator of the site that you found it on, or send us the URL and we will try to contact the site owner to get the link updated.

Firefox 4: compatability with Roam

ecls/ / Service Availability

Mozilla have just released their latest web browser: Firefox version 4.

EDINA is aware that while the majority of functionality within Digimap will work with Firefox 4, you may find that you need to restart the Roam mapping services, and sometimes their print facilities, to get them to work properly. The problem is due to the underlying software we use to make maps not yet being compatible with Firefox 4; usually after reloading everything works smoothly.


Please bear with us while we make the necessary updates to ensure that Digimap is fully compatible with Firefox 4. If you cannot get any aspect of the service working properly then please contact the help desk: edina@ed.ac.uk

VectorMap District – beta release

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions

Ordnance Survey have recently release the next version (the beta version) of their VectorMap District product. This dataset is part of the OS OpenData package.

You can read more about the changes to VectorMap District on Ordnance Survey’s blog.

EDINA will be updating the version of VectorMap District available through both Digimap’s OS Collection and Digimap OpenStream. The current (alpha) version will be withdrawn completely.

There is some processing work to be done on VectorMap District before it can be available through EDINA’s services. With this in mind, we aim to release the new version through Digimap’s Data Download facility on Tuesday 5th April and through Digimap OpenStream by Thursday 31st March.

OS MasterMap background maps

ecls/ / Data Changes & Additions, New Features

OS MasterMap data is now available to download in a rasterised (image) format from Digimap’s Data Download facility. If you need an image of OS MasterMap data (for example, as a backdrop map) but don’t need the complexity of the original vector data, this new stuff is for you.

OS MasterMap – detailed but complex

OS MasterMap is the most detailed product offered by Ordnance Survey. Maps made with with OS MasterMap have been available through Digimap’s mapping facilities since 2007, but if you wanted to use OS MasterMap as background for a customised map by overlaying your own data in a GIS you needed to download and convert the raw GML data. If all you want is a detailed colour background image, this seems like a significant investment of time.

Rasterised OS MasterMap – images not data

Digimap now offers OS MasterMap as .tif images at two scales: 1:1000 and 1:2000 through the usual Data Download facility. This saves you having to download, convert and import the data using specialist GIS software.

Where do I get the OS MasterMap raster background maps?

Log in to Digimap’s OS Collection, go to Data Download and select which scale of OS MasterMap image you want from the list of products. The images are tiled in 1km square tiles, so you can select your area of interest, and the tiles covering it, in the same way as other tiled datasets.

The scales are determined according to the distance on the ground represented by each pixel. The larger scale images are based on a measurement of 0.3125m per pixel. The smaller scale images are based on a measurement of 0.625m per pixel. These equate to approximate scales of 1:1000 and 1:2000 respectively, although these are dependent on the screen resolution of your monitor. You can easily display the maps at other scales, but some loss of image quality may occur if you do.

“How To” Videos on YouTube

ecls/ / Digimap News, Help, New Features, Training & Events

You Tube IconWe have created some “How To” video clips and put them on YouTube for everyone to view. They show how to carry out various tasks with Digimap’s online maps and downloaded data.

You can see all the videos on the EDINA Digimap YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/EDINADigimap

If there are any particular aspects of the service for which you would like us to make a video, you can add them to the discussion on our Facebook page or email us directly at edina@ed.ac.uk.

Ordnance Survey request help on data usability

ecls/ / Consultations, Of Interest

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.

OS MasterMap® Integrated Transport Network Layer™
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OSMM-ITN

OS MasterMap® Topography Layer
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OSMM-Topo

OS OpenData™ Boundary-Line™
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OSOD-BL

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

Digimap is now on Facebook and Twitter

ecls/ / Digimap News

You can now follow the EDINA Digimap service on Facebook and Twitter, as well as keeping up to date here on our blog. Our Twitter feed can be found on @EDINA_Digimap and our Facebook page is at: http://www.facebook.com/edinadigimap

We will be posting news about the Digimap service, forthcoming events, service maintenance operations and new features and functions, all of which may be of interest to Digimap users. Don’t forget you can also start your own discussions about Digimap on the Facebook page and you can leave comments or queries on the blog.

If you click Like at the bottom of the left hand column on the Facebook page or follow us on Twitter you will be kept up-to-date with all the latest news.