Free OS Maps from 1st April

[+The Other Stu]

http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2010/03/2...free-os-mapping

 

It's not been announced what or how, but supposedly they will be available free with no restrictions on re-use.

 

Is this the end of the paper map?

 

Theoretically, if you can reuse it, you can fix errors in OSM which could become even more powerful (and up to date!) than OS itself.

 

So, what do we reckon folks? 1:50k? 1:25k?

 

It's unlikely that the Jewel in the crown (the 1:10k and 1:5k maps) will be released.

 

The other question is, of course, that the current OS maps are dated 2004 and currently 6 years old. Does this mean the government is going to stop bothering updating them?

 

Questions! Questions! Questions!

[+rob.marsh]

http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2010/03/2...free-os-mapping

 

It's not been announced what or how, but supposedly they will be available free with no restrictions on re-use.

 

Is this the end of the paper map?

 

Theoretically, if you can reuse it, you can fix errors in OSM which could become even more powerful (and up to date!) than OS itself.

 

So, what do we reckon folks? 1:50k? 1:25k?

 

It's unlikely that the Jewel in the crown (the 1:10k and 1:5k maps) will be released.

 

The other question is, of course, that the current OS maps are dated 2004 and currently 6 years old. Does this mean the government is going to stop bothering updating them?

 

Questions! Questions! Questions!

 

If this happens...then Good news, but i'm not sure it will be the end of the papaer map. I for one will not be going electronic. It may mean the end of the OS printed maps, although I doubt it as there will be a market for tourists, and those who like to have the "proper map". I think you'll simply see sales drop that's all. It will be interesting to see how this affects Memory Map.

 

I also don't see why making them a free resource will mean that the government will stop updating them.

 

Also, I don't know where your buying your OS maps, but My local OS at least, Explorer 135 is dated 2007.

[+The Other Stu]

 

I also don't see why making them a free resource will mean that the government will stop updating them.

It's difficult to tell, but when the Government is looking to cut resources and this department will be unable to cover its costs.....

Also, I don't know where your buying your OS maps, but My local OS at least, Explorer 135 is dated 2007.

 

1:25k OS Maps are updated usually on a 5 year basis. I'm not sure whether this is just for electronic maps, but there haven't been any digital updates since then.

I would expect the copyright date to be when the map was licenced to be printed.

[+smstext]

i keep hearing about this too, obviously they will need to charge for printing costs, but surely downloads etc should drop dramatically in price?

[+currykev]

The recent openness of mapping companies can only be a boon to us all.

I've witnessed some excellent trends in the past few months.

Watch this and that space with glee I'd say.

[+The Other Stu]

Well it appears that it's been a big let down.

 

As you were.

 

1:250k has been released which is unhelpful because it's too small.

 

1:10k is great for some applications, but it's way too big - this is the one that the local councils use for people's extensions. Each mile square is going to be about 20mb so it's a bit useless if you want to carry it around with you unless your caching device is a Quad Core Laptop with some serious space and memory!

[+keehotee]

Well it appears that it's been a big let down.

 

As you were.

 

1:250k has been released which is unhelpful because it's too small.

 

1:10k is great for some applications, but it's way too big - this is the one that the local councils use for people's extensions. Each mile square is going to be about 20mb so it's a bit useless if you want to carry it around with you unless your caching device is a Quad Core Laptop with some serious space and memory!

 

I'm used to using the 1:10k at work - but in GIS and CAD, not raster, so a fraction of the size.

Compress them - most of the map's white space, so they'll squash down a lot with very little loss of detail.

[+The Other Stu]

Well it appears that it's been a big let down.

 

As you were.

 

1:250k has been released which is unhelpful because it's too small.

 

1:10k is great for some applications, but it's way too big - this is the one that the local councils use for people's extensions. Each mile square is going to be about 20mb so it's a bit useless if you want to carry it around with you unless your caching device is a Quad Core Laptop with some serious space and memory!

 

I'm used to using the 1:10k at work - but in GIS and CAD, not raster, so a fraction of the size.

Compress them - most of the map's white space, so they'll squash down a lot with very little loss of detail.

 

Absolutely. The Tiger uses ArcGIS a lot now for her MSc (read: she has asked me in my technical wisdom to help her with GIS mapping) so I'm used to the 1:10k maps too, but they are no real help with 'caching and they don't show all footpaths from what I remember.

[Edgemaster]

The OS' jewel is the 25k and 50k raster maps, and the MasterMap vector data, if they let these go, they'd have less of an incentive to keep them up-to-date.

 

The aim of this data release exercise was to promote people to do things with data, not merely hand out maps alone.

 

One thing I'm particularly interested in is their release of the contour data - this should be pretty fun to play with and much better quality than any publicly available height data (other than that printed onto the 25k maps).

[tiiiim]

*cough* http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/...ormap/district/ *cough*

 

[+The Other Stu]

*cough* http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/...ormap/district/ *cough*

 

 

That's great - and they look really hot in Vector, but they still don't really show stuff useful to cachers - Bridleways, Footpaths and so on.

 

However, if you want to look at "Important Buildings" and "Railway Stations" then these are just the job.

 

I think Edgemaster is correct though, it appears the jewel in the OS' crown won't get released any time soon.

 

In this day of Technological openness though, that the Government didn't do this as most companies do - for personal use it's free and fine, but for business use you have to pay for it.

 

It seems to me that the major money players (eg. Architects, planners and the like) are going to get all the things they need free and the regular people like me and you are going to have to continue to pay through the nose for it.

 

The OS is unique in that there are few countries in the world who map their countries down to such a fine level - for instance, in the US, the USGS don't produce maps lower than 1:24k and the quality of even that is variable.

 

No doubt this is going to rumble on for some time. Apparently, the whole "Opendata" thing has been bubbling since 2003.

[+Bob Smith]

I've just had a look at the motorway junction near home and the map about three years out of date.

[tiiiim]

*cough* http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/...ormap/district/ *cough*

 

 

That's great - and they look really hot in Vector, but they still don't really show stuff useful to cachers - Bridleways, Footpaths and so on.

 

However, if you want to look at "Important Buildings" and "Railway Stations" then these are just the job.

 

I think Edgemaster is correct though, it appears the jewel in the OS' crown won't get released any time soon.

 

In this day of Technological openness though, that the Government didn't do this as most companies do - for personal use it's free and fine, but for business use you have to pay for it.

 

It seems to me that the major money players (eg. Architects, planners and the like) are going to get all the things they need free and the regular people like me and you are going to have to continue to pay through the nose for it.

 

The OS is unique in that there are few countries in the world who map their countries down to such a fine level - for instance, in the US, the USGS don't produce maps lower than 1:24k and the quality of even that is variable.

 

No doubt this is going to rumble on for some time. Apparently, the whole "Opendata" thing has been bubbling since 2003.

 

You're all right, of course: for geocachers this release doesn't really bring much to the table, especially those who go out onto the countryside footpaths and bridleways. For those caches on or near a street or in cities and towns, however, OS StreetView and the VectorDistrict stuff has a blinding amount of detail - use it as you see fit, I guess!

 

The main advantage is that now the data can be used to fill in the missing roads and names etc on OpenStreetMap and we can concentrate on filling in the footpaths/bridleways etc etc....

 

But yeah, for geocachers: as you were.

[tiiiim]

I've just had a look at the motorway junction near home and the map about three years out of date.

 

That's interesting. From the information supplied by OS (see the PDF http://opendata.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/help.pdf) all of their data gets updated at least once a year, with some up to four times a year. Also, I heard on the BBC 4 series that they've been running (On The Map, if anyone's interested http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rd8z5) that they add up to 5000 updates per day - or did I hear that wrong?

 

Is that junction correct in Google Maps? And in OpenStreetMap? And what type of OS data were you looking at?

Edited April 3, 2010 by tiiiim

[norsch]

I've just had a look at the motorway junction near home and the map about three years out of date.

 

That's interesting. From the information supplied by OS (see the PDF http://opendata.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/help.pdf) all of their data gets updated at least once a year, with some up to four times a year. Also, I heard on the BBC 4 series that they've been running (On The Map, if anyone's interested http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rd8z5) that they add up to 5000 updates per day - or did I hear that wrong?

 

Is that junction correct in Google Maps? And in OpenStreetMap? And what type of OS data were you looking at?

Updated once a year???

 

I have moved house since, but around 10 years ago I got a vist from an OS surveyor. She wanted to count my trees, to see if I had a copse, or a wood or a forest, and to check my boundries, I asked "Why". She said "We do this roughly every 25 years"

[tiiiim]

I've just had a look at the motorway junction near home and the map about three years out of date.

 

That's interesting. From the information supplied by OS (see the PDF http://opendata.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/help.pdf) all of their data gets updated at least once a year, with some up to four times a year. Also, I heard on the BBC 4 series that they've been running (On The Map, if anyone's interested http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rd8z5) that they add up to 5000 updates per day - or did I hear that wrong?

 

Is that junction correct in Google Maps? And in OpenStreetMap? And what type of OS data were you looking at?

Updated once a year???

 

I have moved house since, but around 10 years ago I got a vist from an OS surveyor. She wanted to count my trees, to see if I had a copse, or a wood or a forest, and to check my boundries, I asked "Why". She said "We do this roughly every 25 years"

 

Well, that's what it says in the PDF. (The correct link, by the way, is http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/.../docs/help.pdf)

 

Perhaps I should qualify this. The PDF mentions "Update Cycle" for each OpenData product (and I'm only talking about the 10 OpenData products here, nothing else). Also, I was slightly wrong - one of the products (Landform) is unmaintained. Other than that, it's every year or better. Now the issue is: what does "Update Cycle" actually mean...