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
//
Some of the features mentioned in the previous blog post will be added into the services tomorrow, Tuesday 28th June:
Due to this work there will be some short Disruptions to all the services between 17:30 and 18:30. We hope you find the new features useful, please let us know if you have any feedback:
or call us on: 0131 650 3302
//We have had another very busy month and so a new batch of improvements for the Digimap services will be coming soon.
At the moment downloading data or saving screen images are the only ways to use the maps available in Historic Digimap once you have logged out. Soon you will be able to create and save high quality PDF maps from Ancient Roam for use offline. We hope you will find this a much better way to get the best quality mapping out of the service.
Since the arrival of the Ordnance Survey’s latest large scale product, VectorMap Local, we have been busy thinking of the best way to include it in the Digimap Roam. We have decided to use it to create four new representations available at two different scale levels.
Here is a quick look at what the four different representations might look like:
We haven’t stopped there either; we are also going to add in Line Drawing style mapping to the two most zoomed in levels; for those who like their MasterMap plain and simple, similar to planning application maps.
You will be able to select the different views from the Map Content Control Tab using a drop down list.
For more information about VectorMap Local look in the Digimap help pages as it is already available for download:
OS Products: OS VectorMap Local
For those of you who have tried the annotation tools in Digimap Roam it will come as no surprise that we are very pleased to announce that we are now working on adding the same functionality in Geology Roam. Again the annotation tools are a first draft and will have exactly the same functionality as Digimap Roam’s tools.
Once they are released we’d really like to hear from you about which functions you use and what else you would like added. We are already hoping to add in some Geology Mapping symbols for you to add to the maps.
As an added bonus we are also putting in the measurement tools so you can measure areas and distances too, so you can tell how long a fault is or what area is covered by different rock types.
//We have been having a play around with the new annotation tools in Digimap Roam here at EDINA, and have come up with a few things you might like to try.
Firstly, you will have no doubt been adding many new features to maps but have you tried taking some away?
This is the original map area, a MasterMap map showing some large farm buildings to the left of the original farm house. If you had some information about how the area looked prior to their construction you could recreate a map form the past.
The map on the right shows the area after a large green polygon has been drawn over the building area. Make sure you select an appropriate line width and style for the map, and remember to set the opacity to maximum. You needn’t stop there though, you could add buildings on top of the green polygon representing those that had existed previously.
You can also use the annotation tools for some other neat tricks. The image below shows how you can trace around existing features, a car park in this case, and use the measurement tool to work out its area. By making the polygon fully transparent you can then print out your result without obscuring the original features.
Finally you can use multiple lines and polygons, annotated with text to build up complex new features on the map. The example below shows a proposed new airport in the Thames Estuary:
//Digimap will be ‘at risk’ between 17:30 and 18:30 on May 17th to allow for some service changes and improvements to be made. Access to the service will have to be disrupted intermittently during this period as we add in some new features and make some software upgrades. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope that you find the new additions useful.
Along with new features being added on the 17th of May all print requests from Digimap Roam and Geology Roam will have to be made using the print button 
at the top right of the map. We will be removing the print tab from the list on the left of the map on June the 21st, but until then it will carry instructions on where to find the print button.
We are removing the tab to make room for the new features we are planning to add into the list on the left in the future. You may have noticed that it is already getting a little crowded in Geology Roam, with Geology Photos and an Overview Map being added since the service was launched, and there are more additions on the way.
//EDINA has been busy over these last few months creating some significant new features for Digimap Roam. To go along with the measurement tools we added at the beginning of April we are now working on some annotation tools.
These tools will allow you to draw symbols, lines and polygons on the map; add text, labels and area values; and set the colour and style of the features you have added. The features you add remain the same geographical size when zooming in and out and you can include them on your PDF print maps.
You can download a sample PDF map here: Sample Annotations
We hope to have the annotation tools added soon, please keep checking the blog or the Digimap Facebook page for further announcements.
//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 
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 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.
//
We 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.
//Digimap OpenStream, EDINA’s new open WMS service, was been updated with the latest version of MiniScale from the OS OpenData collection on 25 January 2011. The most significant changes to this dataset include improved ferry route labeling and a different representation of urban areas.
EDINA aims to provide the latest version of OS OpenData via the OpenStream service. This means that datasets may be updated part way through an academic year.
//
We have implemented a new Help system for the Marine and Geology Digimap collections (Marine Help and Geology Help). The Help pages have been moved to a new production system which will make is easier for us to keep them more up to date and allow you to find the information you are looking for more easily and print better looking pages.
Visually there is not much change to the pages but over the coming months we will be updating and revising the content of the Help pages within Digimap to provide users with improved access to information about the Digimap facilities, the data available and how to use the data in different systems.
If you have any comments about the new Help pages or suggestions please let us know.
Tip: if you want to search for a phrase put it in quotes e.g. “zoom to position”
//
Geology Roam now allows you to view British Geological Survey images (of geological features, rocks, fossils and the BGS at work) from the JIDI Image Collection. The images area accessed via the map interface when you are zoomed in to the most detailed geology maps.
There are over 3000 images mainly found in geologically rich areas such as Cumbria, North and South Wales, the Dorset coast, Edinburgh etc. The images cover a wide range of features from details of bedding planes and large crystals in rock faces to aerial photographs of valleys showing glacial erosion features.
To access the photos go to one of the 5 most detailed zoom levels in Geology Roam and click on the camera icon in the tool bar or Geological Photos tab. You can then pan around the maps till you find an area with some photos.
The photos are marked on the map at the location they were taken from; click on the markers to see thumbnails of the image(s) for the location. You can view a full sized image with detail about what is shown by clicking on the thumbnail.
These photos are useful for geologists but there are also some spectacular landscape images that can be enjoyed by everyone.
