Open by Justin Marty
I’ve been mulling over the nature of Open Data, Open Source and just general openness for a while now and, on the whole, these are admirable concepts. Access to data and software can only bring benefits for the most part. Continue reading
Posted in politics, technology
Tagged ACM, DNA, open data, open source, Ordnance Survey, OS, Victorian Society
Ordnance Survey triangulation station by Wessex Archaeology
Not only are we getting somewhere but news this week suggests we will have access to all kinds of map goodness to find our way and see what’s around us! First, the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) decided to start giving away their data in the public interest as announced at a recent conference. Then the Guardian’s Allegra Stratton reported yesterday (18/11/09) that moves are afoot to make more UK geospatial data freely accessible, including (wait for it) Ordnance Survey data. Continue reading
The Ordnance Survey released their equivalent to Googlemaps called OpenSpace a while back now and I’ve been experimenting with it. I love having access to the high quality maps produced by the OS, other offerings such as Googlemaps and OpenStreetMap are simply not a match for the cartographic output of the OS. Having said this, there is still much room for improvement on the technical side of things: Based on OpenLayers, the OS OpenSpace platform is far from easy to get to grips compared to eg the Googlemaps API with simple tasks such as adding GeoRSS feeds and KML layers proving rather tricky let alone including external base layers. And the help and support is rather poor with few examples and much of the forum activity on the part of the OS team being far from explanatory. But still, as we start to see editing tools capable of working with these Javascript APIs, things should improve; I for one am looking forward to this!
Posted in GIS, Research interests
Tagged OpenSpace, Ordnance Survey, OS, web mapping
Archaeogeomancy
