OS Open Data release

OS Open Data Release

The first wave

The following data sets were released on April 01. For the immediate response to the release, the European Public Sector Information Platform has compiled a list of responses to the release, complete with links, from the two days following the release here.

OS Street View

Street level mapping for the whole of the UK. Designed for displaying the features of small areas where the high detail is appreciated.

1: 50 000 Gazetteer

Lists places of interest and names them.

1: 250 000 Colour Raster

Towns and cities, roads and railways. General map stuff if ever such a term could be applied.

OS Locator

Name data for roads at a specific location as well as what ward that road falls into. No geometry.

Boundary-Line

Local Authorities, electoral boundaries etc. currently is the 2009 data, the new 2010 electoral wards data will be added in May. Is parishes up to EU constituencies.

Code-Point Open

Post Codes for Great Britain only. Northern Ireland and Isle of Man still have to pay. Does not list number of properties with that post code. Does include NHS details and boundary area that it is located in.

Many products and services jumped upon this data set as soon as it was released to add post code search functionality.

Meridian 2

For mapping around rivers, major roads and railways. Appreciates being used at 1:50,000.

Strategi

1:250,000 vector data. Basic features of an area.

MiniScale

1:1 million scale, for

Land-Form PANORAMA

Contours and height stuff. No longer maintained, covers all of the UK.

Coming soon

VectorMap District

Another data set. A brand new raster and vector data set designed to fill the void the lack of free Landranger and Explorer maps have left in the line up of free OS data. Does not have residential road names.

OS MasterMap

Subject to discussions OS MasterMap products, to be made available free at the point of use for public sector bodies, and subject to no limits on re-use when used internally within the public sector for public sector activities by 1 April 2011.

Time-line of events

April 01

On April 01 2010, many data sets held by the OS were released. The OS's servers were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people downloading the data. Numerous mirrors were available though, some hosted by commercial companies such as Dotted Eyes, My Society set up its own mirror, and a torrent of the Code Point Open data set was released onto the OpenStreetMap mailing list, this version was edited to use lat and long rather than national grid.

It was released onto data.gov.uk later the same day

That afternoon, a postcode map created from the released Code Point data was placed on the OSM development site. Other sites also incorporate post code look ups into their sites.

Many walkers and outdoors activities focused people and organisations deride the release for its lack of Landranger and Explorer maps.

April 05

A mash up of OSM and the released Meridian 2 data is created to compare and contrast the datasets. Many people make note of roads missing from Meridian 2,

April 06

A postcode data service goes online; it pulls location and post code data together for a given post code (uses Code Point Open).

Ed Parsons shows 2009 electoral constituencies which were mapped thanks to the released data, (Boundary-Line) .

April 07

OSM editors take OS StreetView data and create trace layer in Potlatch.

April 15

Mapyx make non-open OS data free since their mapping program can not open the free OS data releases.

April 19

OSM's Talk-GB email list sees serious discussions about importing the OS Boundary-Line data into OSM.

April 22

A plugin for Map Maker Pro enabling it to post code search using Code Point Open is released.

April 25

Blog post about one OpenStreetMap user mapping Canvey island from OS Open data is posted.

May 19

OS list of uses they've found of OS Open Data - OS list here.

May 26

CiFAS (the UK's fraud prevention service) release a fraud incident map of the UK using OS Open Data for the map.