As Britain’s mapping agency we’re keeping track of half a billion geospatial features across the country and making tens of thousands of changes daily. We have over 200 surveyors on the ground and aircraft who survey from the skies to ensure we have the latest data ready for our customers. Our Flying Team were already prepared for some changes in 2020 as they were moving base and flying in new aircraft with new cameras, but Covid-19 had a bigger impact. Find out how the team have been working in 2020.
London from the air during lockdown in 2020
The Flying Team are usually in the skies above Britain from March to early November each year, using the aircraft and high-resolution cameras to survey about a third of Britain, that’s around 80,000 km2 of imagery data and over 100,000 individual images.
For the 2020 season, the team are flying from a new base, Retford (Gamston) Airport in Nottinghamshire. It’s a great location to fly to both the North of Scotland and down to the South West of Britain, and quite a change from working at our previous base in East Midlands Airport which is a large cargo hub and holiday gateway.
Software: ArcGIS Pro 2.5
Data: OS Open Zoomstack
There are currently a number of examples in the geospatial industry of people using various different styles to create interesting and artistic outputs. The brilliant John Nelson recently wrote a blog on paper terrain styles which inspired me to create my own map using OS OpenData that I could then print on to canvas.
This blog post will outline the steps I took to obtain and process the data to create the final output. I used Esri ArcGIS Pro for this project, but similar styles and tutorials exist for other GIS software.
Final canvas print.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve been supporting the country’s response with our data. In April, we announced the release of an additional Covid-19 licence (extended until March 2021). This enables organisations, developers and individuals to use OS data, free at the point of use, for the specific purpose of supporting the UK response to Covid-19.
Heat Hazard Postcode Data over London with Satellite Imagery and OS Greenspace vectors (*copyright and database right information in caption below).
Since using our Covid-19 licence, we’ve welcomed 4 Earth Intelligence (4EI) as an OS partner! For this week’s OS Developer blog, their Chief Technology Officer Richard Flemmings explains how OS data is enabling their work to address climate change…
Air, surface and soil temperatures in cities are higher than their surrounding rural areas, predominantly due to the modification of land cover. The compact design of cities and the lack of vegetation and green spaces means that heat gets trapped within the urban area from both natural and waste heat energy. This is created from everyday life such as heat escaping from insulated buildings and is known as the urban heat island effect.
Satellite data analysis is complex and most people think it’s beyond their skill to understand and use it. However, that’s what we do and it’s 4EI’s core mission – we take complex science and distil it into information and insights that are valuable to our customers – at its simplest, this includes making maps.
On the 17 September, we told you about a survey we’re running to gather feedback on data formats. We want to make it as easy as possible to use OS products and to achieve this, we need your input.
We wanted to bring you an update on the responses so far and let you know that it’s not too late to have your say. If you use OS data, this a great opportunity to help shape the future of our products and make them easier to access and use. You will start to see outcomes based on this feedback next year, and it will also help us as we embark on the next generation of OS data products.
Continuing our OS Developer content and adding to our series of blogs introducing the people that make up OS, our Associate Data Management Specialist Alina Piotrowska shares a day in the life of a data steward…
I joined OS back in May 2019 as an Associate Data Management Specialist in the Data Management and Requirements team. A large part of my role is to care for our data and to make sure it is meeting customer requirements.
One of our data principles states that OS data ‘is cared for’. This means we treat our data as though it is our own; protecting and nurturing it. We recognise it as a valuable asset, look after it and ensure it gets the time, resources and prioritisation it needs. We do this to ensure that it delivers our outcomes.
As a cohort member of the Geovation Accelerator Programme, founder and CEO of Building Passport Rupert Parker explains how he has used OS data to support his PropTech start-up…
In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion around the suitability of today’s systems and methods for preventing and reducing incidents relating to fire in our built environment.
Three years have passed since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and we are on the verge of legislative change to avoid similar events happening in the future. This will revolutionise the status quo of building ownership and operation.
I founded Building Passport Limited to facilitate this transformation, whilst basing the business on the ultimate vision of creating a safer built environment.
The Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) is an up-to-date address database, containing over 30 million UK postal addresses. It has numerous benefits, such as helping to verify addresses in seconds, making online transactions easier and ensuring that mail is delivered efficiently.
This is why PAF is an integral part of Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase. Combining the postal data of millions in the UK with local authority data, Unique Delivery Point Reference Numbers (UDPRN) and X and Y coordinates allows organisations to provide professional services to their customers, helping to increase the number of online sale conversions and lessening the risks of fraud.
We want to make it as easy as possible to use OS products. To achieve this, your feedback is vital.
When we introduced the new Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), this was just the beginning of our plans to bring improvements and new developments to our users.
One of the cornerstones of the PSGA is introducing ‘new ways to access our data’. On 1 July 2020 we launched many new ways for customers to access our data including new products (such as OS Open UPRN), new pricing & licensing and the OS Data Hub, our new platform for accessing our authoritative geospatial data.
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.