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18 June 2014

QGIS Ordnance Survey Opendata Cartographic Styles

QGIS Ordnance Survey Opendata Styles

Ordnance Survey have released Style Sheets for their #opendata including ESRI (ArcGIS) and Quantum GIS (QGIS) style sheets.

Most strikingly for the Vector Map District Product that is one of the best full Great Britain datasets everyone can download from

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/
opendatadownload/products.html















Nice looking vector data in QGIS using Vector Map District Data from 
Ordnance Survey Opendata.
(Yes motorways in the UK are blue....)
But you can change that if you want.


You can download the stylesheets from

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/resources/carto-design/
cartographic-stylesheets.html

And Charley Glynn sent me a twitter message that these stylesheets and associated files are available on github here:.

https://github.com/OrdnanceSurvey/OS-VectorMap-District-stylesheets/tree/master/ESRI%20Shapefile%20stylesheets/
QGIS%20stylesheets%20(QML)/Full%20Colour%20style

Couple of notes before the quick guide to help you get going...

Install the font provide first - see quick guide below.

The shapefiles have a classification field that is truncated (shapefile truncates field names) but if change to CLASSIFICA it will work. See this screenshot.




















Quick Guide
1. Fork or download the contents of this repository
2. Copy the font file 'OS_VMDistrict.otf' into your systems font directory (on Windows machines this is (C:\Windows\Fonts)
Your machine may require a restart for QGIS to recognise this new font
3. Load your OS VectorMap District ESRI Shapefile data into QGIS
4. Double click on a layer to access the 'Layer Properties' window > click on 'Load Style...' > navigate to the directory containing the QML files (those ending .qml) > select the QML file that corresponds to that layer > click 'Open' > click 'OK'
Repeat step 4 for all layers
5. Although every feature is styled, for use as a contextual map we recommend the following layer order and visibility:
Screenshot
Recommended viewing the map between 1:10,000 and 1:25,000 for maximum legibility
I have even reprojected the data to Web Mercator and got the Bing Aerial Imagery as a background.
Just styles need reversing on a dark background, this uses the Openlayers plugin, the only restriction is making the imagery transparent to 'fade' the imagery down then less contrasting colours can be applied to the background.
The only addition I made was adding the OS Vector Contours from the OS 50 Terrain Dataset - just for a bit more details in the rural areas of England.
Overall it is well worth downloading the styles and playing around with QGIS and the styles. 

  

13 June 2014

The FIFA World Cup of Football 1930-2014.

The FIFA World Cup of Football 1930-2014.

A great map showing The FIFA World Cup of Football since 1930-2014.














"The national teams of 31 countries advanced through qualification competitions to join host nation Brazil. A total of 64 matches are to be played in 12 cities across Brazil. The first round, or group stage, is thirty-two teams divided into eight groups of four teams. Each group will compete in a round-robin fashion. The teams finishing first and second in each group progress to the knock-out stage. This map will update during the tournament to show results and progress.

For the first time at a World Cup Finals, the games will use goal-line technology to help determine whether balls completely cross the goal-line in the event of a marginal decision. Though FIFA president Sepp Blatter had been a vocal opponent of such technology the disallowed 'goal' scored by Frank Lampard against Germany in the 2010 World Cup became so controversial that moves to introduce technology were inevitable. Had Lampard's goal been awarded, England may very well have gone on to win the game."

The official ball of the 2014 World Cup will be the Adidas Brazuca. The name was selected by a public vote that received responses from more than 1 million Brazilian football fans. It is produced by Adidas, the official FIFA World Cup match ball supplier since 1970.

The World Cup 2014 Map
http://downloads.esri.com/kfmaps/worldcup/index.html

Credit and Source:
https://twitter.com/kennethfield/statuses/477211727012970496


02 June 2014

Reprint those World Maps

Reprint those World Maps

All Maps are out of date, whether it is by minutes or years....


"India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh has formally split in two, with its northern area carved out to create a new state called Telangana."


 On 2 June 2014, Telangana became the 29th state of India


Source of image BBC NEWS 

So if your looking for a World Map on your wall check that Telangana for a visual guidance on how up-to-date your World Maps is.

Notes to Cartographers - up date your map quick and re-print as soon as you can.

More Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telangana