UK Mapping Data Goes Free

In the UK over the last few weeks there seems to be a lot of movement toward freeing mapping data, it is all good news.

Ordnance Survey – Base Mapping

For few years a battle had been started in the UK to free mapping data, as relayed by the newspaper Guardian. It looks like that campaign has won a major victory! See the following article for further details

On November 19^th Gordon Brown had made the announcement that the government intends to make Ordnance Survey maps free for use online by any organisation – including commercial ones – at resolutions more detailed than commercial 1:25,000 Landranger maps from April next year.

“Mid-range” maps, with resolutions from 1:10,000 upwards, will be made available for re-use, under the plans announced by the prime minister, along with information on postcode areas and electoral and council boundaries.

Postcode Sectors

Today the BBC confirmed the release of postcode data.  The move will be made as part of government’s commitment to make more use of technology and the web to transform official services. It appears that data will be freed by April 2010. The datasets to be freed is related to the postcodes sectors.

BGS Onshore Geological  Mapping

The good news does not stop there! The last few days BGS (British Geological Society) has announced the release of a new WMS to access 1:50K geological data, DiGMapGB-50.

Up to four themes of polygon or area information are available:

• Bedrock Geology;
• Superficial Deposits;
• Mass Movement;
• Artificial Ground.

The WMS is available in BNG and Lat/Long (WGS84)

• WMS 1.3.0 GetMap request against bedrock in British National Grid (BNG)
• WMS 1.3.0 GetMap request against superficial in Lat/Long WGS84 (WGS84)
• WMS 1.1.1 GetMap request against artificial ground in BNG
• WMS 1.1.1 GetMap request against mass movement in WGS84

Conclusion

For those who follow my blog might have noticed a recent post I published with the integration of OpenSpace (OS Base Mapping) with the ESRI ArcGIS JavaScript, extending the TiledMapServiceLayer.

This time, I have integrated the BGS WMS; by extending the DynamicMapServiceLayer. For further detail s on how to extend this type of layer, please refer to the following sample on the ESRI community web site.

Visit the following page to see the 1:50K geological map over OpenSpace base mapping.