Data Changes & Additions

New data added to Global Digimap: Collins Bartholomew World Panorama

Dec 122018

EDINA are thrilled to announce an exciting new addition to Global Digimap – Collins Bartholomew’s raster World Panorama https://www.collinsbartholomew.com/map-data-products/panorama/world-panorama/

This beautiful new addition to Global Digimap is an excellent addition providing a wonderful cartographic product ideal for small scale extents.

EDINA feel this addition, available via it’s ‘Alternate Base Map’ function is a perfect enhancement to the collection. With it’s origins in The Times Atlas, World Panorama exemplifies what is best about a mapping product where cartographic presentation is at the fore. With a geopolitical committee sitting behind the product, providing input on boundaries and territory disputes it is the epitome of an authoritative dataset. This provides excellent comparison to OpenStreetMap, a massive crowd-sourced dataset of volunteered geographic information.

Available as a raster product and still to be added to Data Download, EDINA are keen to hear if this mapping product is attractive to you as a core offering in Global Digimap. If you have any comments about this new addition, please do let us know using the details below.

Webinar

We are running another short webinar on Global Digimap on Wednesday 9 January from 13:00-13:30 where we will showcase the new dataset as well as talk about the latest developments and additions to the service. There will also be plenty of opportunity to ask any questions you may have about the service and suggest any improvements you would like to see. Places are limited, so please register using the link below if you wish to attend:

If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

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

12 December, 2018 Posted by Ian Holmes at 1:22 pm Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features Tagged with: Global, Global Digimap, Global Roam Comments Off

NEW: Crop Map Data in Environment Digimap

Nov 122018

We are delighted to announce that Environment Digimap now offers the CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops dataset. CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops has been produced by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in partnership with Remote Sensing Applications Consultants and provides annually updated arable crop information for the whole of Great Britain.

Environment Digimap is the only platform dedicated to the academic sector offering this data. CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops data is available for both 2016 and 2017. Environment Digimap’s Roam application has the new datasets displayed as alternative basemaps, allowing you to compare the two years side by side using the “2-up” map function. The opacity slider also enables the underlying context map to be viewed easily.

The Info Tool also enables you to query the Crops data, giving information about the crop name, code, the polygon identifier and the coordinates of the point chosen. All other functions in Roam operate as usual, including the ability to annotate measure and print. The Map Content is also available in the left hand panel to help you identify crop types.

The CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops data is also available to download from Environment Download. Select your area of interest as usual, add the Crop data to your basket and select from File Geodatabase or GeoPackage as optional formats. You can also choose to select individual crop layers rather than the full suite if you wish.

If your institution has a subscription to Environment Digimap, this dataset is available at no additional charge. If your institution does not have a subscription to Environment Digimap, prices and details of the subscription process can be found on our website.*

*Please note that in order to place a subscription order you must be a suitably authorised member of staff. If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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

12 November, 2018 Posted by ecls at 10:30 am Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Of Interest Tagged with: CEH, Crops, Environment Digimap, Environment Download Comments Off

Global Roam now available

Aug 092018

We are very pleased to announce the release of Global Roam. This builds on the release of Global Download last week and allows users to browse global data in the familiar, user friendly, Roam online mapping interface. Global Roam is very much a work in progress and you will find that some of the standard functions are not yet available, but we were keen to get something out to users as soon as possible and we’d love to know what you think of it and where you think it can be improved.

Global Roam showing Central Park in Manhattan

As mentioned in our previous blog post, Global Digimap is available as a beta service as we look to build a suite of datasets, themes and formats that best meets the needs of our users. We will continue to develop the Global Digimap service over the coming months, shaped by the feedback that you give.

Global Roam delivers the familiar Roam interface with detailed global data sourced from Natural Earth and OpenStreetMap. The application includes the usual annotation tools (recently renamed ‘drawing tools’) along with global search functionality. The most zoomed out maps use Natural Earth data which changes to OpenStreetMap as you zoom in. Future plans include:

adding additional data from the rich OpenStreetMap dataset including point features
integrating the print interface to allow high quality printed maps up to A0
addition of the feature information tool allowing users to view the attributes of selected features
creating alternative grey-scale and colour basemap styles
inclusion of the measurement tools [update: these were added 30/08/2018]
customisation of the map through the Map Content panel

It’s worth mentioning that maps saved in Global Roam are not compatible with other Roam clients and vice versa as they use a different projection system. [update: this was resolved 30/08/2018]

Access to Global Digimap

During this development phase, and in return for engagement with the development process, the service will be free of charge for institutions that subscribe to another Digimap Collection. We would like to know what you like and don’t like about it, what features and what new data you would like to see added. We can’t promise to include everything but the more we hear from you the better able we are to prioritise different requirements and create the best possible service.

If you would like access to Global Digimap please ask your local Digimap Site Representative to request access through the Digimap helpdesk and we will ensure your institution is switched on.

Get in touch

It is never too early to let us know what else you would like to see, we are very keen to hear your ideas of how we can make something really useful; our contact details are below:

Email: edina@ed.ac.uk [Subject: Global Digimap]
Phone: 0131 650 3302

9 August, 2018 Posted by Ian Holmes at 3:12 pm Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest Tagged with: Global Digimap, Global Roam, Natural Earth, OpenStreetMap Comments Off

Digimap Update for the 2018-19 Academic Year

Aug 032018

It is the start of a new academic year and we have introduced few new things for you to see in Digimap:

A New Home Page

Digimap has a new home page! It may look a little different, but it works in exactly the same way as the previous version. Responding to feedback from the community we have provided more detail about each collection in the left hand panel, including preview images of the data. Roam and Data Download are easy to find under each Collection’s tab.

Global Digimap

We are very proud to announce the launch of our new Global Digimap collection. This is a new service, developed in response to requests for international data. Initially Global Digimap will offer OpenStreetMap data but our objective is to develop the collection in partnership with the user community, so user feedback will shape both the content and functionality. In return for this engagement, access to Global Digimap will be free of charge until July 2019.

We have asked all the Digimap Site Reps if they would like access to the service, if you can’t access Global Download then speak to your site rep about getting your institution switched on: List of Digimap Site Reps

There is a blog post with more detail about the Global Digimap Service.

Upgrade for Data Download

Following a lengthy beta phase, we have promoted the beta version of Data Download to a production service and this is now the default Data Download application for all Collections. Ever mindful that work flows, and teaching and promotion materials may need updating as a result, we will continue to run the previous versions of both Roam and Data Download until the end of the year. All saved maps and data download histories are available in both new and old versions.

New Licences

Digimap is now operating under new licences for 2018/19 so all registered users are required to accept the new terms. This is a simple process which happens when you first log in. No re-registration is required and all saved maps and data download histories remain available as before.

3 August, 2018 Posted by ecls at 11:50 am Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest Tagged with: Data Download, Global Digimap, Update Comments Off

Aerial Imagery Data available by Year

May 172018

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.

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

17 May, 2018 Posted by Tom Armitage at 10:32 am Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Of Interest Tagged with: Aerial Digimap, Aerial Download, Aerial Imagery Comments Off

OS MasterMap Building Height Data gets significant update

Mar 302018

Building Height Coverage

Ordnance Survey have released nearly 5000 extra 5km squares of building height data, with the total coverage increasing from 2578 to 7302. Each square has at least one building with height attributes added, with most fully covered. We have added this data to Digimap’s Data Download facility allowing you easy access to the data you need.

The Building Heights data is available from Data Download in a range of formats created especially for Digimap users. The most straightforward to use are DWG, File Geodatabase and KML which can be viewed directly in CAD, GIS and Google Earth respectively. You can also take the data as a CSV list that can be joined to the attribute table of any existing MasterMap Building data you have, using the TOID identifier. This means that you don’t have to recreate your project work with new data if you have already spent a lot of time working on it; as long as the buildings still have a TOID in their attribute data you can add the height information to it.

The Building Heights data is ideal for anyone working with the MasterMap data in 3D and has a range of applications in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Environmental Modelling, Archaeological Reconstructions and many more different disciplines. Here are a couple of examples:

OS MasterMap Topography Layer Building Height Attribute data on top of OS Terrain 5 Contours

3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Height Attribute

3D model using Aerial Imagery, OS Terrain 5 DTM and MasterMap Building Heights Data

30 March, 2018 Posted by Tom Armitage at 10:43 am Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Of Interest Tagged with: Building Heights, Data updates, Ordnance Survey Comments Off

Points of Interest now easier to download

Mar 292018

The Points of Interest (PoI) data is great for research and you can make fantastic looking maps too as we have been showcasing on our twitter account. You have certainly been making the most of it too, with 16,877 PoI downloads being made since May 2015. Here are 3 dot density maps we made to show a single class of PoI data:

However until today you had to take all the different classes of points for your specified area and you were limited to taking no more than 10,000 Km² in a single download. As PoI data is split into 9 groups, 52 categories and over 600 classes (see the full scheme here), we though it would make things easier if we exposed some of this hierarchy in Digimap’s Data Download service.

You can now select one or more of the groups or categories to download, taking some of the data processing load off you and making your downloads more manageable. Being able to filter the features in your download by group or category means smaller downloads so we have also removed the limit on the area you can take; you can now take the whole country in one download if you want.

One note of caution though, the PoI data has around 4.5 million records and is over 1gb in size as a simple CSV file. So if you are taking national coverage you may want to only take one group or a few categories to minimise the amount of data you are dealing with.

To select a group or category of features simply add PoI data to your basket then use the drop down menu in the layers column to choose what you are interested in.

We hope that you find this change really improves the accessibility of the Points of Interest data, we look forward to seeing some of the interesting analyses and maps you produce!

29 March, 2018 Posted by Tom Armitage at 4:24 pm Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features Tagged with: Data updates, Ordnance Survey, Points of Interest Comments Off

Additional vertical aerial imagery for Digimap

Dec 212017

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:

Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

21 December, 2017 Posted by Ian Holmes at 3:50 pm Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, Of Interest Tagged with: Aerial Digimap, Aerial Imagery, Aerial photography, Data, Data Download, Digimap, Lidar, Lidar Download Comments Off

Lidar Digimap now included with Aerial Digimap

Aug 012017

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.

Find out here if your institution subscribes

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:

Email: edina@ed.ac.uk

1 August, 2017 Posted by Tom Armitage at 10:58 am Data Changes & Additions, Digimap News, New Features, Service Availability Tagged with: Aerial Digimap, Lidar Digimap Comments Off

Huge Digimap Land-Line data archive (1999-2006) released

Jul 262017

Today we have made a huge amount of archived Land-Line data available to download from Digimap. You access the data through the Data Download application in the Digimap: Ordnance Survey Collection. Land-Line was the pre-cursor to the OS MasterMap Topography Layer, and was the most detailed topographic mapping available from Ordnance Survey at the time. The archive released consists of annual snapshots of the whole of Great Britain from 1999 to 2006. This data will be vital for researchers who are undertaking longitudinal studies, examining how areas have changed over time.

Land-Line.Plus showing Edinburgh’s Quartermile area from 1999

OS MasterMap showing Edinburgh’s Quartermile area from 2017

The data can be found in the Withdrawn Datasets category in the Data Download interface and is currently available in its original tiles and format.

Land-Line comes on 500m, 1km and 5km tiles depending on whether the area is Urban, Rural or Moorland. It is supplied in National Transfer Format (NTF) which was the standard format of the time. We have put together a short help page that explains how to import this data in to common GIS and CAD applications which may be of use for anyone unfamiliar with this format of data.

IMPORTANT: Between 2001 and 2006 Ordnance Survey carried it’s Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) programme. This means that there will be discrepancies in the positions of features on these maps and the OS MasterMap data: Read more on PAI

The Land-Line data that we have made available significantly bolsters the amount of detailed topographic data that is available for download from Digimap. The most detailed topographic mapping currently available from Digimap, OS MasterMap Topography Layer, is available for download going back to 2007. The addition of Land-Line data to Digimap means that users now have access to download the most detailed topographic mapping data for Great Britain going back a further eight years to 1999.

We hope you find this new addition of recent historic data useful, if you have any questions about the data please contact us: