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How can you make the most of using Geographic Information?

Using any new digital product can involve a learning experience. If you are not already familiar with using geographic information (or GI) and would like some guidance on the steps involved to get the most from Ordnance Survey digital mapping products, please make use of the materials provided below.

Here are some questions you might want to consider, to get the best from using geographic information provided by a mapping agreement. 

 

Before you start - what are your business needs?

  • Before you decided you needed a map or Ordnance Survey digital product, what was your business or organisational need?
  • What are the outputs you want from your geographic information system to solve your problem/fulfil your need?
  • What data do you have that you would like to show on a map? (this might be addresses or locations)
  • What kind of digital mapping information would help you solve your problem? (Street names, Road routes, Land contours, etc)?
  • Have you considered which would be the most appropriate geographic information software to meet your business need?
  • What skills and IT resources do you have, to manage and work with geographic data?

Choosing the right Geographic Information system or application is a key decision in this process, once you have clearly defined your needs.

If you are a department in a larger organisation, you may need to create a business case for this work, so answering the above questions will help you do this.

The sections below are designed to give you further help to answer these questions.

Geographic Information and map data concepts

Geographic information (GI) and data is quite a wide field (no pun intended) and there are many terms and concepts that you will need to become familiar with to get the most out of using our products.

Here are some questions and answers that you might help when you start to learn about GI and data products.

GI Questions and Answers:

The example opposite shows how Hampshire Search and Rescue (HANTSAR) have benefitted from using Ordnance Survey products to access more details about an emergency location and improve their response times reaching an incident.

The sections below show more detail about how GI can support the analysis of complex data to the benefit of your organisation

Example: 

How HANTSAR makes use of Geographic Information from Ordnance Survey:

 

 

Using map products to analyse your data

One of the greatest benefits from using Ordnance Survey mapping products is the ability to visually share and analyse complex data.

Here are some resources to help explain what you can achieve in terms of analysis and an example of how our data can be loaded into a Geographic Information System. If you decide to host and manage your map data locally, loading and managing data is a task that someone in your organisation will need to be able to manage.

If you would prefer to engage with a partner to help manage your geographic data, please see the section on software for mapping below which gives more details on the options available.

 

Analysis with Ordnance Survey data

 

How to load data into a GIS

 

 

 

 

Software for mapping

Part of your journey could involve using software to host your data and our mapping products in a Geographic Information System (or GIS).

Find out more about GIS systems in our Mapping FAQs pages. 

Please also see our Software for mapping page to understand the options available to you and to see some examples of partner organisations who can help to host and manage geographic data for you.

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For general enquiries, complaints, feedback or suggestions, email: customerservices@ordnancesurvey.co.uk or call us on 08456 05 05 05