Digimap

Last updated

Digimap
Digimap roam.png
Screenshot of Digimap Roam showing a map of Edinburgh.
Type of site
Web mapping
Available inEnglish
Owner EDINA
Created by EDINA
URL digimap.edina.ac.uk
RegistrationYes
Launched10 January 2000 (2000-01-10)
Current statusActive

Digimap is a web mapping and online data delivery service developed by the EDINA national data centre for UK academia. It offers a range of on-line mapping and data download facilities which provide maps and spatial data from Ordnance Survey, British Geological Survey, Landmark Information Group and OceanWise Ltd Ltd., (marine mapping data and charts from the UK Hydrographic Office), Getmapping Ltd, the Environment Agency, OpenStreetMap, CollinsBartholomew Ltd, and various other sources. [1]

Contents

Digimap is available to members of subscribing higher and further education institutions in the UK. The service is free at the point of use but requires individual registration. Institutional subscription fees are based on an institutional banding system devised by JISC Collections Archived 11 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine .

History

Digimap started as a project under the eLib (Electronic Libraries) Programme in 1996 offering Ordnance Survey maps to 6 trial universities: Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Oxford and Reading. [2] The full service was launched in 2000 and won the AGI Award for Technological Progress in 2000. [3]

In mid-2010 Digimap for Schools was launched, providing on-line maps to the schools sector. [4] The service won a Gold Certificate for the best overall resource in the Geographical Association’s 2011 Publishers’ Awards. [5]

Structure

The Digimap service has eleven collections for higher and further education; Ordnance Survey, Historic, Geology, Marine, Environment, Aerial, LiDAR, Global, Society, Verisk, and agCensus. There is also the Digimap for Schools service, which is available to primary and secondary education institutions.

Digimap: Ordnance Survey Collection

When Digimap was first launched this was the only collection of data available. Originally, the service consisted of a simple mapping client, first known as Lite then re-launched as Classic; an advanced mapping facility, Digimap Carto, which is a Java Applet; and a data download facility. Additional facilities for downloading boundary and postcode data, as well as postcode and gazetteer querying tools, were included later.

In 2007 a separate download facility was developed to allow the download of OS MasterMap data. [6]

In 2009 the simple mapping client (Classic) was replaced with a new interface, Roam, which makes use of OpenLayers "slippy map" technology. [7]

Historic Digimap

The scanned and georeferenced images of old Ordnance Survey maps were added as a new collection to Digimap in April 2005. [8] The collection was scanned by Landmark Information Group and comprises the Ordnance Survey County Series maps and the National Grid maps covering the period up to the release of the digital Land-Line product in 1996. Along with the scanned maps Landmark also created a mosaic for each map series and each of its revisions, these mosaics have then been cut up into the current Ordnance Survey national grid squares. [9]

The service originally consisted of a single interface for viewing maps and downloading either the national grid squares or the original scanned sheets as GeoTIFF images.

In 2010 a new facility called Ancient Roam was released as a beta service to provide a "slippy maps" style interface for viewing the maps. A separate download interface was also added which allows a greater number of maps to be taken in a single session. At this time the most detailed historic Ordnance Survey maps, the Town Plans, were also offered through the service. [10]

A separate viewer for the Dudley Stamp Land-use Survey maps from the 1930s is also included in the collection. [11]

Geology Digimap

Geology Digimap was launched in January 2007 to provide access to British Geological Survey (BGS) mapping data. [12]

The service contains the BGS DiGMapGB (Digital Geological Map of Great Britain) Data at three scales: 1:625,000, 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 and uses grey-scale Ordnance Survey mapping as a backdrop for the online mapping facilities. [13] Geology Digimap provides a data download facility in addition to online mapping. This offers the ability to download BGS data for onward use in GIS application software.

In 2010 Geology Digimap a new interface, Geology Roam, was developed to enable slippy map browsing, changes in the opacity of the geology over the backdrop mapping and additional zoom levels. [14]

Marine Digimap

Marine Digimap was released in January 2008 and contains vector and raster mapping datasets from SeaZone. [15] The service offers Hydrospatial data which is a vector data product created from various hydrographic surveys and data agencies. [16] There is also the Charted Raster dataset, which contains scanned and georeferenced Admiralty Charts from the UK Hydrographic Office.

Digimap for Schools

Digimap for Schools was launched by Baroness Joan Hanham CBE, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB, Director General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey at Graveney School in Wandsworth, London on Wednesday 10 November 2010. [17] The service was offered free to all schools with 11-year-old pupils until the end of 2011, as part of the Free maps for 11-year-olds scheme. [4] The service is very similar to Digimap Roam for Higher Education, allowing teachers and pupils to view the majority of Ordnance Survey's mapping products on-line, and print them out.

Environment Digimap

Environment Digimap, offering the LandCover data from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), was added to the suite of Digimap services in October 2013. [18] Initially the service only included data for Great Britain but Northern Irish data was included in March 2014. [19]

Aerial Digimap

Aerial Digimap was added to the collections in October 2016. This service has added national coverage of 25 cm resolution aerial images from Getmapping. [20] One key difference between this Digimap Data collection and the others is that it is not Jisc funded and subscriptions are directly with EDINA.

LiDAR Digimap

LiDAR Digimap offers access to Digital Elevation Models created by the Environment Agency, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), and Natural Resources Wales. This collection was added in 2017. [21]

Global Digimap

Global Digimap was added in 2018 [22] to give Digimap data beyond Great Britain. It contains data from OpenStreetMap, Natural Earth, and Collins Bartholomew. [23]

Other Collections

Digimap also offers Society Digimap with socio-economic data from the Office for National Statistics, Verisk Digimap with data from Verisk Analytics, and agCensus Digimap providing agricultural census data for Great Britain. [24]

Technology

Digimap architecture full.png

Digimap uses both open source and proprietary software to provide a range of facilities. JavaScript and Java Applet mapping tools are used to present data from PostGIS databases via MapServer and TileCache (Tile Map Service) software. Maps from the TileCache and customised maps specified by the user are created on demand using Cadcorp's GeognoSIS software and presented to the user via an OpenLayers and MapFish interface. [7] [25] In 2010 the EDINA Geoservices Team received a "Highly Commended" in the Innovation & Best Practice (Charitable Status) Award from the AGI, for its implementation of its new technical infrastructure. [26] [27]

In 2007 Snowflake Software's Archived 12 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine Go Publisher and an Oracle database were added to the software supporting the delivery of Ordnance Survey's OS MasterMap GML data. [6]

The Digimap service is OGC standards compliant and EDINA is an active member of the Open Geospatial Consortium, hosting a meeting in June 2006. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographic information system</span> System to capture, manage and present geographic data

A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database, however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topographic map</span> Medium to large scale map that shows a precise map of the terrain

In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines, but historically using a variety of methods. Traditional definitions require a topographic map to show both natural and artificial features. A topographic survey is typically based upon a systematic observation and published as a map series, made up of two or more map sheets that combine to form the whole map. A topographic map series uses a common specification that includes the range of cartographic symbols employed, as well as a standard geodetic framework that defines the map projection, coordinate system, ellipsoid and geodetic datum. Official topographic maps also adopt a national grid referencing system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordnance Survey National Grid</span> System of geographic grid references used in Great Britain

The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system (OSGB), also known as British National Grid (BNG), is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, distinct from latitude and longitude.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Geological Survey</span> Geological survey

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordnance Survey Ireland</span> Former national mapping agency of Ireland

Ordnance Survey Ireland was the national mapping agency of the Republic of Ireland. It was established on 4 March 2002 as a body corporate. It was the successor to the former Ordnance Survey of Ireland. It and the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) were themselves the successors to the Irish operations of the British Ordnance Survey. OSI was part of the Irish public service. OSI was headquartered at Mountjoy House in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, which had previously been the headquarters of the British Ordnance Survey in Ireland until 1922.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenStreetMap</span> Collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed geodata sources. OpenStreetMap is freely licensed under the Open Database License and as a result commonly used to make electronic maps, inform turn-by-turn navigation, assist in humanitarian aid and data visualisation. OpenStreetMap uses its own topology to store geographical features which can then be exported into other GIS file formats. The OpenStreetMap website itself is an online map, geodata search engine and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TomTom</span> Dutch manufacturer of automotive navigation systems

TomTom N.V. is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Amsterdam, TomTom released its first generation of satellite navigation devices to market in 2004. As of 2019 the company has over 4,500 employees worldwide and operations in 29 countries throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CSPro</span> Survey processing software

CSPro, short for the Census and Survey Processing System, is a public domain data processing software package developed by the U.S. Census Bureau and ICF International. Serpro S.A. was involved in past development. Funding for development comes primarily from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The main purpose of this software framework is to design an application for data collection and processing.

EDINA is a centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh as a division of the Information Services Group.

Cadcorp Limited is a British owned and run company established in 1991. Cadcorp has its headquarters in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, U.K. Cadcorp has a network of distributors and value added resellers (VARs) around the world.

The Great Britain Historical GIS is a spatially enabled database that documents and visualises the changing human geography of the British Isles, although is primarily focussed on the subdivisions of the United Kingdom mainly over the 200 years since the first census in 1801. The project is currently based at the University of Portsmouth, and is the provider of the website A Vision of Britain through Time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Cartographic Society</span>

The British Cartographic Society (BCS) is an association of individuals and organisations dedicated to exploring and developing the world of maps. It is a registered charity. Membership includes national mapping agencies, publishers, designers, academics, researchers, map curators, individual cartographers, GIS specialists and ordinary members of the public with an interest in maps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordnance Survey</span> National mapping agency for Great Britain

The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose, which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was also a more general and nationwide need in light of the potential threat of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. Since 1 April 2015, the Ordnance Survey has operated as Ordnance Survey Ltd, a government-owned company, 100% in public ownership. The Ordnance Survey Board remains accountable to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. It was also a member of the Public Data Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National mapping agency</span> Organisation that produces maps and geographic information of a country

A national mapping agency (NMA) is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters.

The Ordnance Survey International or Ordnance Survey Overseas Directorate its predecessors built an archive of air photography, map and survey records for the United Kingdom from 1946 to 1999. The Ordnance Survey International Collection held mapping records that were acquired outside the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital geologic mapping</span>

Digital geologic mapping is the process by which geological features are observed, analyzed, and recorded in the field and displayed in real-time on a computer or personal digital assistant (PDA). The primary function of this emerging technology is to produce spatially referenced geologic maps that can be utilized and updated while conducting field work.

Crown Copyright has been a long-standing copyright protection applied to official works, and at times artistic works, produced under royal or official supervision. In 2006, The Guardian newspaper's Technology section began a "Free Our Data" campaign, calling for data gathered by authorities at public expense to be made freely available for reuse by individuals. In 2010 with the creation of the Open Government Licence and the Data.gov.uk site it appeared that the campaign had been mostly successful, and since 2013 the UK has been consistently named one of the leaders in the open data space.

GeoSPARQL is a standard for representation and querying of geospatial linked data for the Semantic Web from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The definition of a small ontology based on well-understood OGC standards is intended to provide a standardized exchange basis for geospatial RDF data which can support both qualitative and quantitative spatial reasoning and querying with the SPARQL database query language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endsleigh Gardens</span>

Endsleigh Gardens is a street in the Bloomsbury district of central London, in the London Borough of Camden. It runs south-west to north-east from Gordon Street to Woburn Place. The south-west end becomes Gower Place after the junction with Gordon Street. Taviton Street and Endsleigh Street run off the south side.

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