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08-April-2010

OS OpenData and EDINA

As the dust settles over recent release of part of the Ordnance Survey's data it might be interesting to look at how this might affect EDINA's Digimap service. EDINA has had a long and productive working relationship with the OS and the Digimap service has been hugely successful. This allows students and staff at higher education institutes in the UK access to almost all data held by OS. This service is free at the point of use and represents great value for institutions. So, how will Digimap be affected by the release of this OS data?

Well, first of all it is important to stress that EDINA views this release as a positive step and is currently investigating how it can make use of the data to enhance its existing service and develop new ones. Much of the data available through Digimap is not included in the OS release. Therefore, the easiest way for students and staff to access this data is through Digimap. If you want a small area of data, then the Digimap delivery mechanism is much easier to use. You can use maps to select your area of interest and download exactly what you want, the OpenData site may force you to download the entire dataset.

Further, Digimap offers much more beyond just OS data, there is data from the British Geological Survey, Seazone and Landmark which give access to geology, marine and historic OS data respectively. Concentrating on the OS data, the table below summarises what is available in Digimap and what was released by the OS

Product Name	EDINA Digimap	OS OpenData
OS MasterMap Topography	Yes	No
OS MasterMap ITN	Yes	No
1:10 000 Scale Raster	Yes	No
1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster	Yes	No
1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster	Yes	No
1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster	Yes	Yes
MiniScale®	Yes	Yes
Meridian™2	Yes	Yes
Strategi®	Yes	Yes
Land-Form PANORAMA® Contour	Yes	Yes
Land-Form PANORAMA® DTM	Yes	No
Land-Form PROFILE®	Yes	No
Boundary-Line®	Yes	Yes
Code-Point®	Yes	No
CodePoint® with Polygons	Yes	No
Code-Point® Open (point data only; subset of Code-Point®)	No	Yes
1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer	Yes	Yes
OS StreetView	Yes	Yes
OS Locator	No	Yes
OS VectorMap District (from 1 May 2010)	Yes	Yes

It is clear that Digimap still has a great deal of mapping to offer the academic community. It mission is to continue to offer the easiest access to quality geographic information data products in the future by working closely with its data partners, such as the Ordnance Survey.

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