CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
http://thebikeshow.net/ordnance-survey-maps-for-free/
"the proponents of the wiki-democratic Open Street Map loath the Ordnance Survey with a passion. It stands for everything they’re against: closed systems, the tyranny of the professional and paying for stuff."
"How to get them for free"
You could use Bing instead of Google Maps (controvertial!).
Someone was linked a page here that used silverlight to do a bingmaphack and give you a massive scrolling OS map of the UK. Silverlight generally crashes all the time when I try use it though.
I like the concept of OSM and admire their hard work, but visually they are a bit horrible, could take a lesson from OS's beautiful and practical representation. OS maps are the master at giving you enough information on the map so you can orientate yourself in your surroundings, without drowning you in unneccessary points of reference. I suppose that's going to be the difference between a system set up by well-meaning individuals skilled in programming and databases and a system run by cartographers - it's not just a science, there's definitely an art to it.
I used a 1:100,000 OS touring map of Scotland last summer. All of Scotland on one sheet means its a bit inaccurate for fine tuning your route, but you can work out where you want to go and see the main roads to get there. In the back country, there generally are only one or perhaps 2 roads to get where you want to go anyway. I used a bit of mobile phone and a bit of following my nose to fill in the gaps and locate bits of likely looking cycle path.
OSM is getting better, and Talky Toaster is creating nice mapsets for use on all the Garmin GPSs. I've used them now for over 2 years and are brilliant. Like any map it is developing and more and more data is being added all the time!
Link:
http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm
You can lend OS maps out the library? Might finally get round to joining.
OSM is great in the town where there is a lot of attention spent on it, there just isn't the interest to replicate the documentation of the country the way the OS has. Although having discovered on more than one occasion found a path on a OS map doesn't actually mean it is in any way passable.
"Someone was linked a page here that used silverlight to do a bingmaphack and give you a massive scrolling OS map of the UK."
http://uslot.com/NewBingTestPage.html
Possibly my most used shortcut (after CCE of course).
Good point Steveo. OS diligently catalogues rights of way, potential paths etc., but what OSM is always going to have is user feedback about surfaces and conditions - and most importantly - cyclability!
It would be nice if you could project the OSM cyclepath layers onto an OS background and try get the best of both worlds.
"It would be nice if you could project the OSM cyclepath layers onto an OS background and try get the best of both worlds. "
Something like this would be good. This is OS mapping and Google Maps side by side:
"the proponents of the wiki-democratic Open Street Map loath the Ordnance Survey with a passion. It stands for everything they’re against: closed systems, the tyranny of the professional and paying for stuff."
What a bizarre thing to say! Why on earth would people creating free to use electronic maps "hate" an organisation that has provided world class maps for years (and years before the advent of "E-mapping"!).
It was made (originally) to assist Gunners (the clue is in the name ;-)) and was produced for use by professionals, obviously is has become very useful for many members of the public as well and the OS have produced hard copies for them (the public) for years at a pretty reasonable cost to be fair.
Go to some countries I've been to and if you're found in possession of a map you'll be arrested for espionage! We're not so bad here :-)
(Oh and you can thank the Artillery for the invention of the grid system as well! Some "military" developments are decidedly useful for peaceful ends :-))
As a taxpayer I own Ordinance Survey (a small portion of it anyway) - which would make it an odd thing to hate.
I do like OpenStreetMap though. There's nothing like flicking open a new tab and confirming that there really is a navigable path between A and B...
My Higher maths teacher was a TA and used to endlessly go on about the Mil and cannons and how we could thank Napoleon for the Mil.
In my book, OS maps are right up there in the "things Britain does best" list.
And the list of great things that were originally created for military purposes is very very long.
@cb That is possibly the best link ever.
My list of things that the OS has done over the years to upset me is really pretty small.
Top of the list is probably no longer identiying the map cover photos, and that's a pretty petty thing to get upset about.
If you look closely at the OS site, they've come on in leaps and bounds in opening up their data to other people. Yes it's not OSM, but it's far better than where they were a few years back.
And the OS work very hard to produce spectacular, accurate and up to date maps covering the whole country down to minute detail. And that costs money, so its not altogether immoral that they ask for some when you buy a paper map or want to get your hands on their data.
Here you get Googol, OSM and OS side by side. You can output your oute as GPX too...
http://bikehike.co.uk/index.php
"This website is intended for anyone wanting to create or view routes on either Google or Ordnance Survey maps. Since the Ordnance Survey maps are limited to the United Kingdom, this site is primarily intended for UK users. Non-UK users may find it useful operating in single map mode (i.e. Google map + elevation data).
The great advantage of the Ordnance Survey maps (particularly the Landranger series) is the huge amount of detail they contain. Therefore mountain bikers and hikers can now create routes along byways, bridleways and footpaths. Roadies may also find it useful to see the added level of detail contained on the OS maps.
Features:
Simultaneous course creation on Google and Ordnance Survey maps.
Upload and download of routes to and from GPS units (GPX, TCX, KML and TRL formats).
Upload & download directly to a Garmin GPS unit using the Garmin Communicator Plugin.
Interactive elevation profile - hover or click on the elevation graph to see corresponding route point.
Toggle between elevation and gradient view on elevation graph.
UK postcode and place name search.
Auto routing on the Google map.
Add coursepoints to aid navigation.
Add points of interest to add information to routes.
Distance and elevation data continuously calculated for your route.
Course editing facilities - including Google style route dragging .
Printable courses on both Google and OS maps."
@Crowriver I like the sound of that site, will explore it later
It's good, but you then have to download the gpx track and upload it onto another site as, because of licensing issues with Ordnance Survey, the resulting map cannot be displayed publicly
I agree - OS maps are lovely and I'm sure cost money to create to that high standard. But if you don't need something of that quality then OSM maps don't tie you into a restrictive licence. Especially as we've already paid for the OS ones through our taxes.
I went to a lecture given by an OS chap several years ago where he stated that one of the aims of the OS was to become financially self-sustaining through selling its products.
Not sure where that got to and how/if it was affected by opening up some of their data a few years back.
@cb: You can put OSM via 'Talky Toaster' into BaseCamp, then buy Ordnance Survey tiles at a terrific cost of course, and you can overlay them together on Garmin GPSs and in BaseCamp. I do this all the time in another 'disguise'!
you can also do some of this in Google Earth for specific 'routes/tracks', plus you can export chunks of GE into Garmin BaseCamp as well, so allowing you to overlay ortho corrected aerial photography.
Also you can thank Gordon Brown MP ex PM (for Dunfermline) for making Ordnance Survey release smaller scale mapping for 'open' use (as long as you give acknowledgement of copyright!).
I got a load of free mapping stuff of OS the other day. You cna now go online and order all their maps for you're own use in raster format I think, and they deliver it free on CD. I have one CD so far and just need to find time to look at what is on it.
@Kaputnik, I thought the mil was a forces only unit of measure and the rest of the world used Deg, minutes and seconds? Hadn't heard of the Napoleon link...
Edited to add, wikipedia is my friend :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_mil
Old school bart half-inch to the mile:
http://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_scotland_halfinch_list.html
CTC accredited, natch..
Re: Bikehike - good but it runs out of OS Tiles later in the day.
I use the newbingtestpage site for occasionally printing off a page that we're going for a walk or a cycle on. I use bikehike for plotting and planning nice rides to go on.
It's good, but you then have to download the gpx track and upload it onto another site as, because of licensing issues with Ordnance Survey, the resulting map cannot be displayed publicly
Yeah, a bit annoying that. I used it for the trial Dumfries run route, and the detail in the OS maps is really useful, especially bike paths and forest tracks which are not roads. I downloaded the GPX and then loaded it into Bike Route Toaster for saving and sharing online.
Old school bart half-inch to the mile
The Forth one has a great detailed map of the north Edinburgh path network, well before the 'inner tube' map. It's weird though, they look more like railway lines on that map from 1934... ;-)
@smudge seeing as the guy who invented it wasn't born until after Napoleon was in charge of the Grand Army, I think Major Downie may have been BSing us a bit. At least he was right about the French bit!
And there's about to be another (digital) option.
"
Entirely new Apple homegrown mapping
solution built from the ground up with all cartography done in-house by apple
by AppleInsider
7:40 PM
"
http://live.appleinsider.com/Event/Live_from_Apples_WWDC_2012_Opening_Keynote_Address/32458132
"
Apple has been flying over cities to build 3D models, similar to what google reviewed it has been working on last week at its own event.
by AppleInsider 7:43 PM
"
http://live.appleinsider.com/Event/Live_from_Apples_WWDC_2012_Opening_Keynote_Address/32459470
I hope that is a very early prototype map and not what the final version might look like...
It's quite fascinating to wonder how a company (even as rich as Apple) goes about creating their own (presumably global) mapping service.
So, aquisitions of various bits of technology and potentially purchasing map data from a 3rd party.
"One interesting question is where the 2D map data will come from. The simplest and probably lowest risk option for Apple would be to buy data from NAVTEQ (now part of Nokia) or Tele Atlas (part of TomTom). This is fairly expensive, but Apple is not short of money, and either are pretty well proven options."
Also some speculation in that link that they might use OSM data but that seems less likely.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts