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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
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 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.
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
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:
We have now reached the end of the Lidar Digimap Preview. We hope that everyone who has used the service has found it a great way to access the Lidar data available. From now on the service will continue to be available to Digimap Users whose institution subscribes to the Aerial Digimap service.
Lidar Point Cloud Forth Rail Bridge. Crown copyright Scottish Government, SEPA and Scottish Water (2012).
Despite the addition of Lidar Digimap, Aerial Digimap subscription prices will not be increased for the 17/18 academic year. We will also be looking to add further datasets to Lidar Digimap over the next 12 months, these include:
Additional Point Cloud datasets ideal for use in CAD software for creating 3D models like this one of the Forth Rail Bridge
Photography; aerial images captured at the same time as the Lidar data
We’d also like to thank the hundreds of people who took the time to fill in our user feedback survey on Lidar Digimap, we have seen a huge range of uses for the data across a very broad range of disciplines. This feedback exercise has been very successful and we will be making the draw to see who has won the Amazon vouchers very soon. Keep watching the blog for the announcement in the coming weeks.
If you would like any more information about the Lidar or Aerial Digimap collections or details on how to subscribe then please do not hesitate to contact us:
Canworthy Solar Farm, which became operational in 2014 and covers approximately 55 hectares (~67 football fields)
Aerial Digimap updates
March/April 2017 has been a busy couple of months for the Data Team who have been working hard to process a huge area of updated aerial imagery data from the data supplier, Getmapping. The update consists of around 80,000 individual 1km tiles, all captured in 2015, which is approximately 30% of the country.
Prior to the update just over 50% of the data was from 2013 or later; after the update 77% of the data is from 2013 or later.
This means that more up to date imagery is now available for viewing and download through Aerial Digimap for a significant proportion of the country.
The map below shows the approximate distribution of the updated data.
Click on map to view larger version
This is the first update we have received from Getmapping, but we are expecting another update later this year containing imagery captured in 2016.
Cruise liner in the Firth of Forth
We will add this to the service as quickly as we can to ensure that the most up to date data is always available to Aerial Digimap users. In order to make it clear where the data has been updated, we will add an Availability/Reference Grid to Aerial Download so that users can easily identify if the imagery has been updated in their study area(s). This grid will be added to the system in the next couple of weeks.
We are still investigating the best way to make previous versions of the data available, but in the mean time only the most recent data is available through Aerial Roam and Aerial Download.
Webinar resources
We recently ran a webinar highlighting the data and showcasing a number of potential uses for the imagery. The webinar was recorded in full and is available on our YouTube channel. The slides used during the webinar and a transcript of all questions and answers are available on our help page.
3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Height Attribute
Data information
The aerial imagery data in the service is 25cm resolution vertical aerial orthophotography supplied by Getmapping PLC, and is the most detailed aerial imagery available for the whole of Great Britain. As well as being a really interesting dataset the imagery also has a number of practical uses across a wide range of disciplines from urban planning and 3D modelling to land use and archaeological studies.
Subscribing
To see if your institution already subscribes to Aerial Digimap, please see our subscribing institutions help page. Information on how to subscribe to the new service is available on the Aerial Digimap Subscription page.
If you have any questions about the service please consult the dedicated Aerial Digimap help pages or contact the Digimap support team using the details below.
Dataset updates in Ordnance Survey Digimap
OS Data Download:
Product Name
OS Publication Date
Code-Point
February 2017
1:25,000 Colour Raster
March 2017
1:50,000 Colour Raster
March 2017
Points of Interest
March 2017
OS Roam:
Product Name
OS Publication Date
1:25,000 Colour Raster
March 2017
The OS data update page is kept up to date with all dataset updates in the collections.
If you have any questions about the dataset updates or Digimap please contact us:
Aerial Digimap was only launched at the end of last year but the response from the Digimap Community has been amazing. The service already has thousands of active users who have created hundreds of thousands of screen maps. Users have downloaded tens of thousands of square kilometres of this data, for use directly in reports or GIS and CAD software.
Data updates
Whilst we’re excited to see such a high level of usage of the new service, behind the scenes our Data Team are currently processing the 2015 data which will be available in the service early next month. This is the first update we have received from the data supplier, Getmapping, and contains updates to around 80,000 tiles. This is a significant update as it covers roughly 30% of the country providing more up to date imagery for a large proportion of Great Britain. The map below shows the likely distribution of the updated 2015 data.
Click on map to view larger version
Webinar resources
We recently ran a webinar highlighting the data and showcasing a number of potential uses for the imagery. The webinar was recorded in full and is available on our YouTube channel. The slides used during the webinar and a transcript of all questions and answers are available on our help page.
3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Height Attribute
Data information
The aerial imagery data in the service is 25cm resolution vertical aerial imagery supplied by Getmapping PLC, and is the most detailed aerial imagery available for the whole of Great Britain. As well as being a really interesting dataset the imagery also has a number of practical uses across a wide range of disciplines from urban planning and 3D modelling to land use and archaeological studies.
Subscribing
To see if your institution already subscribes to Aerial Digimap, please see our subscribing institutions help page. Information on how to subscribe to the new service is available on the Aerial Digimap Subscription page.
If you have any questions about the service please consult the dedicated Aerial Digimap help pages or contact the Digimap support team using the details below.
EDINA will be running a free webinar about Aerial Digimap on Wednesday 25th January at 13:00 – 13:30pm.
Please join us to learn more about Aerial Digimap and the benefits the data can bring to research, teaching and education. The webinar is free, but you will need to register (see link below). Places on the webinar are limited with only 100 available, so book now to secure your place.
In the webinar you will hear about the new Digimap Aerial Collection launched in October 2016. We will give you a guided tour of the new Aerial Roam application explaining the data and functionality available.
You can read more about the Aerial Digimap service in this previous blog post:
EDINA is pleased to announce the launch of Aerial Digimap, a new Collection offering aerial photography from Getmapping Plc.
Aerial imagery capture dates
The crystal clear imagery from Getmapping is 25cm resolution vertical aerial photography and the most detailed national coverage available. The largest proportion of the imagery dates from post-2011 with updates due every year.
Aerial Digimap offers both a mapping and a data download facility, both familiar to those who already have access to other Digimap Collections.
Aerial Roam offers the ability to view, annotate and print the aerial photographs as well as an overlay function to allow comparison with current Ordnance Survey mapping.
Aerial Roam with Road/Place name overlay
Aerial Download offers the ability to select specific locations for which to download the aerial photography for use in local desktop software. Data is delivered in jpeg format each with a corresponding world file (.jgw).
In order to access Aerial Digimap, your institution must subscribe. Please contact your local Digimap Site representative, Learning Resources team or Information Services to express your interest, (you can find your site rep details on this help page: http://bit.ly/DigimapSiteReps).
Subscriptions must be requested by an authorised member of staff. Details about how to subscribe to Aerial Digimap can be found here: http://bit.ly/AerialDigimapSubs
Please contact EDINA directly on edina@ed.ac.uk with any subscription enquiries.
