Ordnance Survey Archives - Digital Urban

3D Mash-Up Maps let you ‘Edit’ the World

Andy — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:12:00 +0000

This weeks NewScientist has a good article entilted ‘3D mash-up maps let you ‘edit’ the world. Written by Colin Barras it notes that armchair explorers who soar over 3D cityscapes on their computer may be used to the idea of maps with an extra dimension. But they are now getting accurate enough to offer much more than a preview of your next holiday destination. Accurate, large-scale 3D maps could soon change the way we design, manage and relate to our urban environments.’

Colin dropped us a email here at digital urban, our thoughts are included in the article – you can read the online version via the NewScientist website.

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Ordnance Survey: 3D Cities and Accuracy Never Seen Before

Andy — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:37:00 +0000

We have a lot of time for the good people down at the Ordnance Survey Research Labs and they have just released an interesting video of some 3D Cities work they are carrying out:

The Telegraph has a good story on this along with a quote from Glen Hart, head of research at Ordnance Survey who states that – “Three-dimensional maps in themselves aren’t new, but what we’ve achieved in Bournemouth is a level of accuracy and detail that’s never been done before,”.

It’ll be interesting to see how this stacks up against Infoterra’s Skape initiative, embedded below:

The Ordnance Survey plan to roll out the rest of the UK over the next 5 years and with Google/Microsoft and various other commercial outfits also scanning our cities these are interesting times.

A whole post without a dig at the Ordnance Survey, we are almost proud

See also the Skape Blog for the latest news on the software, views and development.

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UKMap from GeoInformation: Ordnance Survey Free 3D Cities for the UK?

Andy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:32:00 +0000

We like the GeoInformation group here at digital urban, they have provided us with various datasets over the years – allowing work such as the LiDAR movie below possible (note the movie was captured in real-time)

LiDAR Scan of London – Textured from digitalurban on Vimeo.

As such their launch of UKMap is intriguing, UKMap forms part of a five-year programme to map over 500 towns and cities covering all urban areas with a population greater than 10,000 some 24,000 square kilometres throughout the UK.

London is the first complete UKMap city covering over 1,700 sqkm and is available on 1 September 2009. Areas to be published in 2010 include the West Midlands conurbation, Merseyside, Manchester and parts of Yorkshire.

The press release states that the UKMap is a highly detailed, feature rich mapping database, which comprises integrated map layers and attribute tables. Captured for use at 1:1,000 scale, UKMap includes buildings with 3D information, road detail including pavements, lane markings, pedestrian crossings and speed humps, a full address gazetteer, inferred property boundaries, land use coding and a wide range of points of interest. It also includes aerial photography and terrain layers.

“The technology changes of the last few years have made the creation of UKMap not only technically feasible but commercially viable. There is a growing demand for choice when it comes to mapping. We believe the time is right for the UK mapping industry to provide GIS users with that choice.” says Seppe Cassettari, CEO of The GeoInformation Group.

We will have more on UKMap in future posts – we are getting more information via a sneak preview soon…

These are interesting times, as Ed Parsons notes the Ordnance Survey monopoly finally faces a challenge and that can only be a good thing.

Also of note is the inclusion of height data, finally the possibility of flexible licensing on building outlines, heights and therefore 3D cities in the UK could be upon us.

See http://www.theukmap.co.uk/ for full details.

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The Battle to Rebuild London has Begun: The Guardian

Andy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:33:00 +0000

Victor Keegan, writing in The Guardian, takes a look at the number of companies working on building London as a 3D model. From high end architectual represenations to Second Life the article takes a look at the history and the gold rush to build a three-dimensional replica of London, complete with streets, shops, parks, even the underground system.

Our work is covered, although its almost six years of work we would like to forget, being ahead of the field, new planning laws about to go through and a real chance of changing how Londoners view and have a say about their city – still c est la vie, as Victor states:

The biggest – covering not just central London but an area stretching out to the M25 – is also the most bizarre: a publicly funded project that the public can’t see. Built by University College in association with Connect London, it boasts 3.2m building blocks and could have gone live two years ago, well ahead of the competition, as part of Google Earth, but for our friends at Ordnance Survey, which controls the vital database refused permission. Cue the Free Our Data campaign.

Take a look at the full article via The Guardian Online.

Virtual London: Removed from Second Life at Request of Ordnance Survey

Andy — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:39:00 +0000

Our Virtual London model in Second Life has been removed from the collaborative environment at the request of the Ordnance Survey.

The research is currently ‘pending license clearance’ as the Ordnance Survey are ‘uncomfortable’ with the use of the data.

Details on the work currently unavailable are in the post below, we are reserving comment at request on this one, but i guess you know our views…

Three Dimensional Collaborative Geographic Information Systems (3DC/GIS) are in their infancy, Google Earth opened up the concept of three dimensions to the mainstream but issues with data copyright, the inability to effectively tag data to buildings and the asynchronous nature of the platform have limited developments.

Second Life however provides a synchronous platform with the ability to tie information, actions and rules to objects opening the possibility of a true multi-user geographical information system. It has been notoriously difficult to import 3D data into the Second Life but at CASA we have managed to import our Virtual London model of 3 million plus buildings into a scrolling map. The map is built from prims that ‘res’ our of a central point to build accurate models based on Ordnance Survey MasterMap with height data supplied by InfoTerra.

The movie embedded below illustrates a section of Canary Wharf, London building in real-time, note the movie represents work in progress:

For past details see the Ordnance Survey/Google and Virtual London thread.

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New Scientist – Ordnance Survey and Virtual London

Andy — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:29:00 +0000

Its good to see geography in the New Scientist and their write up of the Virtual London/Ordnance Survey issue raises some good points with additional views from other professionals in the industry.

Its a bit of a moment to be in New Scientist, just a shame its under circumstances of research having to take a new route rather than launching a model of London that would of changed the way people view and commented on urban planning and architecture.

New Scientist – Ordnance Survey and Virtual London

Andy — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:29:00 +0000

Its good to see geography in the New Scientist and their write up of the Virtual London/Ordnance Survey issue raises some good points with additional views from other professionals in the industry.

Guardian Newspaper – Virtual London and the Ordnance Survey

Andy — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:35:00 +0000

The Guardian – a National Newspaper in the UK – has a full page spread on the story of Ordnance Survey and the licensing of our Virtual London model.

Entitled ‘Want to see a great 3D model of London online? Ordnance Survey says no’ the article by Michael Cross examines the issues behind the Ordnance Surveys decision.

You can read the full article online via the Technology Guardian site.

Full details on the story can be found in our original post – Ordnance Survey and Google Statements on Virtual London.

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Guardian Newspaper – Virtual London and the Ordnance Survey

Andy — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:35:00 +0000

The Guardian – a National Newspaper in the UK – has a full page spread on the story of Ordnance Survey and the licensing of our Virtual London model.

Entitled ‘Want to see a great 3D model of London online? Ordnance Survey says no’ the article by Michael Cross examines the issues behind the Ordnance Surveys decision.

You can read the full article online via the Technology Guardian site.

Full details on the story can be found in our original post – Ordnance Survey and Google Statements on Virtual London.

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Londonist’s View of the Ordnance Survey

Andy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:25:00 +0000

We are merely passing on a link in this post as Londonist has published its own unique views on the Ordnance Survey and Google issue regarding data licensing.

Suffice to say it made us smile but also worry slightly in a ‘we need to distance ourselves from all this for the sake of our career’ sort of way.

We will publish a list of articles related to this issue next week – a number of people in the industry have been passing comment on various sites and blogs which make interesting reading.

As for our view – well we are probably too close to the subject to comment but there are complex issues that need to be raised with regards data licensing.

See the Londonist article on the Ordnance Survey.

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