Onscreen OS mapping - have a look...

andersoncj

Hi all

Have looked through a few pages of forum posts and I don't think this is a repost, but I've come across the following site with some very usable UK onscreen mapping:

http://www.maptasm.com/

I believe that Ordnance Survey are freeing up their access to on-screen mapping and this is one of a number of demo sites previewing the new access. The map zooms through a range of scales, only bypassing the 1:25000 scale, jumping instead to some very detailed GIS style mapping.

Since you can set the map to full screen and pan and zoom very quickly around the country, I imagine this will be very useful to people planning to tour in the UK and looking at various route choices.

Best wishes

Christian

andymiller

It is very snappy considering the size and quality of the map image.

tarpaullynn

Thats a pretty good link, only suggestion I could make to making it better would be to have footpaths, bridleways etc marked on on the street level mapping.

Still a handy site to bookmark though, thanks for link.

megilleland

A good find - useful for lots of situations

GeorgeShaw

Now if you could combine maptasm with Google maps style route planning, like bikely or bikeroutetoaster, that would be really exciting.

redddraggon

Doesn't seem to work for me. All I get is:



Zoom in, Zoom out, nothing seems to work!

psmiffy

a few roads seem to be missing

JHcp

Reddraggon

Click on the blue + in the top right and a dialogue will open then click on the 'Getmapping Npemaps WMS and you should see the detail.

Unfortunately this map is based on the OS maps of the 1950's hence a lot of the roads are missing, it is also pre Beeching as all the railway lines are still there!

pneumatic

JHcp wrote:

Reddraggon

Click on the blue + in the top right and a dialogue will open then click on the 'Getmapping Npemaps WMS and you should see the detail.

Unfortunately this map is based on the OS maps of the 1950's hence a lot of the roads are missing, it is also pre Beeching as all the railway lines are still there!

Thanks for the clarification that these maps are dusty old archive material. Having just spent over two hundred notes on Memory Map, I was about to explode with indignation!

andymiller

pneumatic wrote:

JHcp wrote:

Reddraggon

Click on the blue + in the top right and a dialogue will open then click on the 'Getmapping Npemaps WMS and you should see the detail.

Unfortunately this map is based on the OS maps of the 1950's hence a lot of the roads are missing, it is also pre Beeching as all the railway lines are still there!

Thanks for the clarification that these maps are dusty old archive material. Having just spent over two hundred notes on Memory Map, I was about to explode with indignation!

Eh? The mapping I can see is current OS 25k and 50K. If you switch to the GetmappingNPE layer that is archive mapping that is out of date, but in the Openspace layer it is definitely up to date. I've tried a few places going from London to Scotland. coverage looks pretty good to me.

pneumatic

pneumatic wrote:

Thanks for the clarification that these maps are dusty old archive material. Having just spent over two hundred notes on Memory Map, I was about to explode with indignation!

OK, so now i am about to explode with indignation. I thought OS was so jealous of its intellectual property, that you had to buy it through a licensee. What have I just spent all that money on?

JHcp

andymiller wrote:

pneumatic wrote:

JHcp wrote:

Reddraggon

Click on the blue + in the top right and a dialogue will open then click on the 'Getmapping Npemaps WMS and you should see the detail.

Unfortunately this map is based on the OS maps of the 1950's hence a lot of the roads are missing, it is also pre Beeching as all the railway lines are still there!

Thanks for the clarification that these maps are dusty old archive material. Having just spent over two hundred notes on Memory Map, I was about to explode with indignation!

Eh? The mapping I can see is current OS 25k and 50K. If you switch to the GetmappingNPE layer that is archive mapping that is out of date, but in the Openspace layer it is definitely up to date. I've tried a few places going from London to Scotland. coverage looks pretty good to me.

Thanks for that Andy, I couldn't get the Openspace to work yesterday but did get the Getmapping working and assumed that it was the same maps. I tried it this morning and got the Openspace to load with the up to date maps. I suspect the servers couldn't handle the load yesterday.

That does make sense, I couldn't see why they were using old mapping. In which case this would be a great resource for UK cyclists.

pneumatic - I understand your indignation. I found out a bit more about this this morning . It seems that this is a demo using the Ordnance survey's new OpenSpace API resource, which is very similar to Google maps. It enables web developers to embed Ordnance survey maps into web applications. It is currently in Alpha testing and will be available for general release in early 2008, there is more info on OpenSpace APIhere The link that Christian found is one guys demo running the OpenSpace API.

andymiller

pneumatic wrote:

OK, so now i am about to explode with indignation. I thought OS was so jealous of its intellectual property, that you had to buy it through a licensee. What have I just spent all that money on?

As another Memory Map owner, I do think it is time for OS to review it's licensing policies which look increasingly untenable. Hopefully one day we'll be able to buy digital maps and then be able to use them with any program on any device.

But give OS its due as well: their digital mapping is light years ahead of what is avalailable in Spain or Italy.

pneumatic

andymiller wrote:

But give OS its due as well: their digital mapping is light years ahead of what is avalailable in Spain or Italy.

and also considerably better than what is available for France, judging by the crudely photocopied IGN paste-together that consitutes Memory Map's Alpes package (at 100 quid a disc!)

Anyway, agreed about OS. I met their Chief Exec a few years back who tells a compelling story of organisational change away from the mentality of the archivist cartographer to the age of digital possibilities. They do seem to have made the most of the assets they have and developed them well. I suppose I should be glad that they are now at the stage of being prepared to "give" them away.

andymiller

pneumatic wrote:

andymiller wrote:

But give OS its due as well: their digital mapping is light years ahead of what is avalailable in Spain or Italy.

and also considerably better than what is available for France, judging by the crudely photocopied IGN paste-together that consitutes Memory Map's Alpes package (at 100 quid a disc!)

Anyway, agreed about OS. I met their Chief Exec a few years back who tells a compelling story of organisational change away from the mentality of the archivist cartographer to the age of digital possibilities. They do seem to have made the most of the assets they have and developed them well. I suppose I should be glad that they are now at the stage of being prepared to "give" them away.

I was quite impressed with the Memory Map Pyrenees box set (i paid £80 in the Swinnertons January sale). They are identical to the IGN GeoRando digital mapping - so not photocopied. I think OS mapping is visually clearer than IGN so has it by a whisker over them but otherwise IGN mapping is damn good. On the otherhand IGN/MemoryMap/GeoRando mapping is also damn good value compared with OS because it includes the 25K mapping as well.

andrew_s

pneumatic wrote:

OK, so now i am about to explode with indignation. I thought OS was so jealous of its intellectual property, that you had to buy it through a licensee. What have I just spent all that money on?

The page title says "Christmas Links (OpenSpace API Demo"
I wouldn't expect it to remain available for very long (but I've bookmarked it just in case)