'Ordnance Survey Free' 23rd December 2009

'Ordnance Survey Free' 23rd December 2009

The document that everyone has been waiting for ;

"Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey Consultation"


Will the Ordnance Survey Website have a direct link to your free data in April 2010?

Ordnance Survey Free products from 1 April 2010 is shown below. It includes digital reference
products and digital display products:

Raster Free Products:

• OS Street View [1:10 000 scale raster product] already available in OpenSpace
  
• 1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster so Happy Christmas
• 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster already available in OpenSpace
• 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer already available in OpenSpace [Gridded data]
• 1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster
• MiniScale (a 1:1 000 000 scale raster product)

Vector

• Code-Point - that's full grid refrenced postcode data
• Boundary-Line - a specialist 1:10 000 scale boundaries dataset
• Meridian 2 - transport network and topographic themes
• Strategi - 1:250 000 scale topographic database
  

The products that are released as part of Ordnance Survey Free will continue to be
maintained by Ordnance Survey to a high and consistent standard. The product set
may evolve over time.

Ordnance Survey Free is intended to allow communities to combine (or “mash-up”)
government data about their community and environment from a number of sources
and illustrate their findings in a geographic context:

The raster products will enable developers to produce an application that overlays
their information on a map and to zoom-in from a national view with MiniScale
down to the street level with OS Street Viev, the gazetteer, boundary and postcode information will enable widespread use.

These commonly used geographies and it will act as a link between other
government data sets which reference the same geography
the 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer provides a definitive source of town and place.

names to search and locate a place of interest on the map

Code-Point provides the location of every postcode to enable accurate search and display of specific locations and it will link to other data with a postcode reference

• Boundary-Line provides the outline and a unique reference to all the
administrative and electoral units of Great Britain.

• Meridian2 and Strategi are small scale vector products which provide the
geometry of features to allow customisation and combination with other data.
Meridian 2 includes a full named and attributed road network.

Issues - none is there?

Issues highlighted by Ordnance Survey:
The most immediate impact on Ordnance Survey as a result of the release of
Ordnance Survey Free products will be the reduction in revenues.
Three different types of existing and future revenue loss have been identified, and their potential impact on Ordnance Survey quantified.
These include: direct revenue impacts as a result of the loss of revenue from the products to be released for free; product substitution affecting Ordnance Survey’s remaining products, which will arise as customers switch to Ordnance Survey Free products; and increased competition impacts as competitors are able to derive their own products from the Ordnance
Survey Free products.

The estimated that the revenue loss to Ordnance Survey from a combination of
these three effects would be £19-24m p.a. Further growth was anticipated in these
products, which could now be foregone.

The provision of Ordnance Survey Free datasets and associated services has been
assessed on the basis of avoidable cash costs at £6-8m p.a. over the next five years,
including both the operating costs and on-going investments required for these
products. In addition there would be one-off development costs for data provision of
up to £1.1m.

source:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1415413.pdf [PDF]
[Section 7]

Vector Magic - Raster to Vector - update

Vector Magic - Raster to Vector - update

"One of the best products out there that really does vectorize raster images to enable editing/scaling and just makes life easier in the cartographic world."



Vector Magic takes a raster image and recreates it in a vector format.
image sources: Vector Magic



The new version (26th Feb '09) v1.11 (pc) v1.14(mac) has a number of new features including:

• Now export to AI (Adobe Illustrator), DXF (CAD) (in addition to EPS, SVG, and PDF)
• On PC, export to Microsoft Office EMF format
• More export options (group by colour, stroking mode)
• More compatible EPS output

Get an order in by 6th March for the Desktop Version using the promotion code VMDE0306 before March 6th and get a $50 discount.

Mapperz has seen Vector Magic develop from Stanford University Artificial Intelligence research project into a fully commercial and viable product in less than 2 years. Well done to the creators in making and continuing to develop this excellent product.

Desktop Version
http://vectormagic.com/desktop/

Online Version Available (less functionality)
http://vectormagic.com/online/how_it_works

Source:
http://vectormagic.com/blog/posts

Deep Zoom - Sliverlight 2 Beta

Deep Zoom - Sliverlight 2 Beta

Deep Zoom requires silverlight 2 beta 1, works in firefox 3beta3.


This has potential - this is only one single image (4.1mb) but if you used quadtiles then the quality of the image when zooming would be preserved - this requires pre-processing and can be time consuming when dealing with high resolution images.
A Free Application 'MapCruncher' will produce tiles that can be used.
The extra item here is that you are not restricted to using raster data.
Vector Data can also be used.

Sliverlight highlights:

• Custom branded experiences using 2D vector graphics, animation, styling, and skinning.

• Highly sophisticated across major browsers on Mac, Windows, Linux, and devices.

• HD video and adaptive streaming techniques for world-class media experiences.

• Unparalleled interactivity with high resolution content through Deep Zoom technology enabling smooth browsing independent of screen size.

To Create 'Vector Tiles' there is a little known set of python scripts available here
http://research.microsoft.com/MapCruncher/TiledVectors/TiledVectorsDemo-1.1/description.html

There is a demo that works straight from the download (USA States)

In Virtual Earth

Very Generalised when zoomed out.



A Very Generalised Dataset but when you zoom in is much faster at displaying. Notice the less generalised data when zoomed in (this demo is purely to show the process).
When in 3D mode the Vector lines are rasterised on the fly.

Limitations - Polylines only - Polygon generalisation can be more demanding.

Combined the Four Products (Sliverlight, MapCruncher, TileVectors and Virtual Earth) and you have a nice production line for creating your own online/offline interactive maps.

Ordnance Survey New Product - Sitemap™

Ordnance Survey Releases A New Product - Sitemap™


Image Source: Ordnance Survey

"OS Sitemap provides customers with extracts of Ordnance Survey mapping in a number of different formats and to different scales. It is has been developed to suit the requirements of a broad range of customers - from private individuals requiring a paper map to large design and engineering organisations wanting map data to be used within a computer system."

OS Sitemap provides a detailed and seamless view of topography of Great Britain:
Three scales

• 1:1250 (Derived from OS Master Map)

• 1:2500 (Derived from OS Master Map)

• 1:10 000

Available in Paper (Colour or Black and White)
Raster Images (LZW compressed Tiff or PDF format)
Vector (DXF but not NTF or GML)

But is it cheap?
No, cheaper than OS Master Map but for Personal use and even small businesses it is expensive. Use Open Street Map (free) as an alternative instead.

Prices, the PDF just points to Sitemap at the end available at Ordnance Survey Mapping and Data Centres, it depends on a number of factors

Raster or Vector formats
Colour or Black and White
Size of Area needed
and complex pricing structuring dependant on your use, commercial vector on a website will lead to many ££££.

To find your nearest stockist

60 Layers of Features however here are some that are Not included are

Roads under 100 metres (Private Land)
Rights of Way
Detail under bridges (so captured from aerial photography and not surveyed?)
Detail under elevated roads
Buildings below a minimum size (resolution of image not high enough to capture it?)
Land parcel areas and House Numbers

Good for Ordnance Survey to create new digital products, however they need to make purchasing and costs more accessible to the public.
If they reduce prices they would gain more customers and not scare many off with complex pricing, are all 47% of Ordnance Survey is paid by the tax payer.
so do UK tax payers with get a 47% discount with that?

mapperz
likes OS products and uses them most days in a commercial sense, though OS need to make it easier and cheaper for Joe Public to use it for personal use.