AGI Awards - Digimap Highly Commended

EDINA has receive a Highly Commended mention at the annual Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Awards for Innovation and Best Practice. http://www.agi.org.uk/agi-awards/

EDINA was entered in the Innovation and Best Practice (Charitable Status) category based on the presentation given at GeoCommunity 2010 by Tim Riley. Tim presented a paper entitled Digimap: 10 Years Old and yet Brand New. The migration of an established service to new GIS infrastructure. This described how much of the infrastructure of Digimap had been updated to a mainly Open Source solution which significantly improved the quality of service offered by Digimap. You can download Tim’s paper here: http://assgeoinf.squarespace.com/storage/geocommunity/papers/TimRiley.pdf

and view his presentation here: http://prezi.com/vkvslwzxtkzr/digimap-10-years-old-and-yet-brand-new-migration-to-a-new-gis-platform/

The winner of this charitable status section went to MapAction for their work in response to the Haiti and Pakistan earthquakes.

Geological Photos in Geology Roam

Geology Roam now allows you to view British Geological Survey images (of geological features, rocks, fossils and the BGS at work) from the JIDI Image Collection. The images area accessed via the map interface when you are zoomed in to the most detailed geology maps.

There are over 3000 images mainly found in geologically rich areas such as Cumbria, North and South Wales, the Dorset coast, Edinburgh etc. The images cover a wide range of features from details of bedding planes and large crystals in rock faces to aerial photographs of valleys showing glacial erosion features.

To access the photos go to one of the 5 most detailed zoom levels in Geology Roam and click on the camera icon in the tool bar or Geological Photos tab. You can then pan around the maps till you find an area with some photos.

The photos are marked on the map at the location they were taken from; click on the markers to see thumbnails of the image(s) for the location. You can view a full sized image with detail about what is shown by clicking on the thumbnail.

These photos are useful for geologists but there are also some spectacular landscape images that can be enjoyed by everyone.

NEW open service: Digimap OpenStream

EDINA is pleased to announce the release of Digimap OpenStream – a web service delivering OS OpenData to the UK academic sector using open standard WMS technology.

Digimap OpenStream is an EDINA Digimap value-added service freely available to the academic community. Access is not restricted to registered Digimap users, although a one-off online registration is required. The OS OpenData offered is accessible 24/7 and users are able to embed it into their own application software without the overheads of downloading and managing large quantities of data.

Digimap OpenStream provides access to the following OS OpenData products:

• MiniScale®
• 1:250,000 Scale Colour Raster
• OS Vector Map™ District (Raster)
• OS Street View®

Details of the Application Programming Interface (API) are provided along with simple guides illustrating how to use the service within popular GIS software.

Full details of the Terms and Conditions of Use can be found now at http://openstream.edina.ac.uk/terms

MapAction - Haiti Appeal

MapAction is a a volunteer-based charity and non-governmental organisation which works in disaster zones providing frequently updated situation maps showing where relief help is most urgently needed.

The earthquake in Haiti has killed all but two members of the Haitian national mapping agency (the equivalent of Ordnance Survey). At Digimap's 10th Anniversary event on 20th January 2010, Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey's Chief Executive and Director General, took a moment to tell of the work that MapAction are doing in Haiti and encouraged donations to this cause.

Donations can be made online directly from the MapAction website: http://mapaction.org/. Vanessa's appeal can be seen in the short video below:

New facility, new name

As indicated in a previous post, EDINA is creating a new version of the existing Classic mapping facility.

A sneaky peek at the new interface under development....
Given that the new facility works in a very different way, we would like to give it a new name. We have a number of suggestions, and would like to know your views on them. To this end, we have posted a poll on this blog (look to the top right hand side of this window) for you to vote with.

There are a number of things we need to take into account in choosing a name. For example:

1. It needs to give the mapping facility an identity. When users contact our helpdesk asking for assistance with it, they need to be able to refer to it by name with confidence that we will know what they are referring to. Similarly, our helpdesk need to be confident that they understand which facility a user is talking about, and using an easily identifiable and catchy name for it is an easy means to that end.

2. It needs to be memorable - users need to know which facility they are using.

3. It needs to be unique, not used by any other mapping organisation for a mapping service or product.

Vote on the blog here, or if you would rather, send us an email with your ideas. Thanks for your help!

What do you know about postcodes?

There is a lot to know about UK postcodes! Here are some interesting key facts:

• There are around 2 million postcodes in the UK, covering something like 29 million addresses.


• A postcode is made up of four constituent parts. Take the postcode EH9 1PR as an example:


• The postcode Area is indicated by the initial one or two letters: EH
• The post District is indicated by the one or two numbers following the Area: EH9
• The postcode Sector is indicated by the number after the District: EH9 1
• The postcode Unit is indicated by the full postcode: EH9 1PR


• Some buildings can contain delivery addresses with different postcodes. High-rise residential buildings are a good example of these. As far as the Code-Point dataset is concerned these are called Vertical Streets, and their boundaries are recorded as regular squares. These are clearly visible when the postcode boundaries are mapped.


• Usually postcodes cover around 15 delivery addresses, although this isn't a hard and fast rule.


• Some postcodes apply to only one address or building. Ordnance Survey's postcode is SO16 4GU. Buckingham Palace also has it's own postcode, SW1A 1AA, and 10 Downing Street's postcode is SW1A 2AA. The House of Commons is SW1A 0AA


• Postcode unit boundaries (which form the OS Code-Point Polygons dataset) are mathematically calculated around a centroid and are not based on physical boundaries visible on the ground. This centroid is calculated using the coordinates for the delivery points in each postcode. These are not necessarily the precise geographic coordinats of the letterbox in your front door!


• The Code-Point dataset offered through Digimap provides much more information than just the postcode and the coordinates of it's centroid. Additional information includes the NHS Region code, Ward name, how many delivery addresses are in that postcode, how many of those are domestic or business delivery points. The range of information given is different for Scotland from England and Wales.


• These enable you to link additional information to the postcode if it is already associated with a code common to the postcode dataset e.g. you can identify which postcodes are associated with data you have collected using Ward codes.


• You can use Digimap's Postcode Query facility (in the Ordnance Survey Collection) to look up the additional information about a particular postcode.


• You can use Digimap's Boundary Download facility to download the Code-Point data and the associated polygons.

AGILE Initiative - Spatial Data Access Survey

Higher and Further Education in the UK already has access to a significant quantity of mapping and spatial data from Ordnance Survey via the Digimap agreement. EDINA is conducting a survey in order to understand more about current academic access to maps and data from other national mapping agencies (i.e. the European equivalents of Ordnance Survey) in other European countries. While we are happy for Digimap users to complete the survey, you can help us further by passing this link on to friends and colleagues within Higher or Further Education elsewhere in Europe: http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey Please read on for more details.

*****

Are you are a teacher, lecturer or researcher at a Higher Education Institution in Europe?

Do you use geospatial data (maps, aerial photography, satellite imagery etc.)?

http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey

What is the purpose of this survey?
The purpose of this survey is to find out how easy it is for you, as a teacher or researcher, to gain access to the geospatial data sets held by the National Mapping and Cadastral Agency or Agencies in your country. Europe’s Network of National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs) hold and maintain the majority of Europe’s ‘core’ geospatial information including:

• topographic data;


• cadastral information;


• aerial photography; and


• land use information and historical map data.

We believe that Higher Education in Europe should be an important market for the NMCAs, as there are around 4,000 Higher Education institutions, with over 17 million students and 1.5 million staff.

With your help, we hope to find out how easy it is to access these data. We will use this information to encourage more NMCAs to make their data available to teachers and researchers in Higher Education across Europe. Our goal is to help you gain access to the quality geospatial data that you need.

Who is carrying out the survey?
Our research team is part of the EDINA National Data Centre, based in the University of Edinburgh, UK. The survey has been endorsed by the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) and EuroGeographics, which represents 52 National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies from 43 countries across Europe.

When will the survey finish?
The survey will be open for you to complete until Tuesday 21st April 2009.

During this time we would like your help to get as many teachers and researchers as possible to complete the survey. So, once you have completed the survey, please pass on the email and web link to this survey.

How do I complete the survey?
The survey can be found at http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey

Who should I contact for more information?
If you have any questions please contact: Dr David Medyckyj-Scott, by email at edina.surveys@ed.ac.uk

Obituary: Peter Burrough

Peter Burrough, one of the founding fathers of GIS research, died in Leiden on 9th January 2009.

Peter Burrough is recognised for his for seminal work, Principles of GIS for land resources management. Published in 1986, the book introduced the essential technical tasks of GIS applications such as spatial data capture, storage, and output, and the development of the analytical models that were needed to exploit the full potential of this new technology. The book became an instrumental resource for soil scientists as well as geographers, surveyors, social scientists, urban planners and students in these fields. As a result many became interested in the newly developing GIS field.

Peter Burrough is also recognised for his important contributions to the creation of both AGILE (the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe) and to EUROGI (EURopean Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information) at a critical point in its development.

In January 2007, his role as a founding father of GIS research was internationally recognised in a special issue of the International Journal of Geographic Information Science on Advances in the spatio-temporal modelling of environment and landscapes. This was edited by two of his former colleagues at Utrecht University and the co-author of the second edition of his classic work, Rachael McDonnell.

Review of geo-spatial services for the ESRC

EDINA has received the following message regarding a survey being conducted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which we believe will be of great interest to you.

EDINA believes that this survey will influence the development and availability of services offering geospatial resources to the academic community. If you or your colleagues make use of, or have in the past made use of, geospatial data or resources (maps, satellite data, statistical data, census information etc), we would strongly urge you to complete the survey.

We would also be grateful if you would pass on a link to this page to colleagues who may not see it. Note the closing date of the survey is 31 January 2009.

The following text is from the researchers conducting the survey, and gives some useful background:

In support of the National Strategy for Data Resources for Research in the Social Sciences, the Economic and Social Research Council has commissioned a review of the current availability of, access to, and future needs for geo-spatial data services by the research community. These are broadly defined and include not only the data necessary to map and analyse data with a spatial dimension, but also resources which broaden the range of spatial research undertaken and enhance the ability of researchers to undertake spatial analysis.

To assist us with this review, would you please spare a few minutes to complete a short web-based survey concerned with the awareness and use of geo-spatial resources by researchers and their opinions about new areas for development via ESRC investment. Please note that we are interested in your opinions even if you are not currently undertaking research with a spatial or geographical dimension.

Any information you provide will be used purely for statistical purposes in order to plan future services. This survey will remain confidential and any published results will not identify individuals.

The survey should take 5 to 10 minutes to complete and will remain openuntil 31 January 2009.

Link to: Geo-Spatial Resources and Services Survey


Many thanks for taking the time to complete this survey.

Peter Elias, Anne Green and David Owen,
Institute for Employment Research,
University of Warwick,
Coventry CV4 7AL.

NB: If you want further information about this review or wish tocontribute your views/opinions in a more detailed fashion, please emailthe researchers directly:
Peter.Elias@warwick.ac.uk
Anne.Green@warwick.ac.uk
D.W.Owen@warwick.ac.uk