Ordnance Survey (OS) Partner Basemap share their insights on speed data, why it matters and how their data is available via OS MasterMap Highways Network.
As autonomous vehicles develop around the world, we’re seeing a greater need for accurate data, both in live and static forms.
Live data enables dynamic routing, but it can be hard to pass the data from device to device quickly enough. A 5G network could help this issue, but it may take years to become a reality.
Static data is equally important as you need to have accurate base data which shows the difference between a road and a pavement, where a vehicle is allowed to drive, and any routing restrictions or speed limits. OS & GeoPlace have been working on this via the OS MasterMap Highways Network product, with Department for Transport investing £3 million pounds in its creation.
Continuing our series to introduce some friendly faces from the people working at OS and showcase the wide variety of work we do, meet Joe Harrison. Joe joined OS on our graduate scheme in 2017 as a data scientist and has worked in a few areas of the business so far. If you’re a follower of the blog, you may recognise some of the project Joe’s worked on…
Hi, I’m Joe, one of the data science grads from the most recent graduate scheme. My first placement was an eight-month stay in the Consultancy & Technical Services team from September until the end of March. I then moved to the GeoDataViz team with Charley and Paul for a two-month placement.
During my first week in the team, Charley was contacted by the Scottish Boundary Commission who wanted advice on how to visualise the new Scottish constituency boundaries and the changes. I created a couple of examples using QGIS. I improved the clarity of the maps by reducing the number of colours, and by adding shadows to emphasise areas of interest.
Following the success of our Geovation Challenges, three years ago we opened the Geovation Hub in London. This decision was made to further energise innovation in the UK geospatial industry and offer proptech and geotech start-ups the best possible support through the Geovation programme.
In the three years since the hub opened, businesses that have entered the programme so far have raised £19.5m in investment funding and created 189 new jobs! For more details on the progress of Geovation, please have a read of our press release.
To celebrate this milestone, we’ll be chatting to those who have been involved in the OS initiative to find out how it has helped them grow their business. Hear from some of them below and stay tuned for further videos from this year’s intake of startups!
Find out more about Geovation.
Overseeing the operations of Axis Maps, I don’t get to make maps as much as I’d like. Last week I had a free day, so I figured I’d build a quick interactive map to try out some new tools and techniques for use in our future custom interactive mapping projects, and (data willing) show a new or interesting geographic phenomenon.
The Royal Institute of British Architects is gathering tonight to preview the RIBA Stirling Prize 2018 shortlist. The annual awards celebrate the best buildings in the UK, the vast majority of which OS surveys and adds to the master map of Great Britain. We’re wondering if our surveyor Tim Glasswell will complete a hat trick and find he has surveyed the winning building once more…
Tim works in our East of England team and has surveyed two buildings in Cambridge which have previously won the national RIBA Stirling Prize – the Sainsbury’s Laboratory (at the University Botanic Garden) in 2012 and the Accordia development in 2008. From this year’s shortlist, Tim and colleague Howard Boyer, surveyed the Storey’s Field Centre and Eddington Nursery, University of Cambridge.
According to our sales figures for 2017/18, we have been able to publish the top 10 least popular Explorer maps in England, Scotland and Wales.
We’d like to put some friendly faces to the people working at OS and showcase the wide variety of work we do. As today is the International Day of Charity, we’re starting with Teena Munden, Business Centre Manager and chief fundraiser at OS.
I celebrated my 10-year OS anniversary last month!
While I have always worked within the business centre, I started out as a Business Centre Executive. Five years ago, I applied for my current managerial role. It felt like a natural progression and, while I was nervous about the increased responsibility, I feel I have thrived as Business Centre Manager. OS has been very accommodating over the years and despite my promotion I was able to continue working part-time to fit in with childcare.
Teena with Solent Mind CEO Kevin Gardner, left and former OS CEO Nigel Clifford, right
Inspired by the Mapbox blog – Tim Manners in our OS Labs team built this awesome demo application to showcase the dynamic hillshade. The demo includes a widget which enables you to change the light source directly on the client and see the map change in real-time. Tim used our OS Terrain 50 DTM grid dataset to generate a series of Terrain-RGB tiles. These tiles contain elevation data encoded in raster PNG tiles as colour values that can be decoded to raw heights in metres and rendered on the client-side for customisable terrain visualisations. Take a look below for how it appears when combined this with the OS Open Zoomstack Vector Tile API:
OS is Britain's mapping agency. We make the most up-to-date and accurate maps of the country. But we're also a digital business, and we use our content to help governments, companies and individuals to be more effective both here and around the world.