The map on your PC
Although the
online mapping services are a great and famous resource, there are advantages
in storing maps locally on your hard drive. These maps are often faster than
the web-based map, providing the ability to pan and zoom right away for those
who do not have very fast Internet connection. Furthermore, if you are on the
Bothy Mountain in Scottish Highlands, for example, being able to see the
detailed map when there is no web access is something you will appreciate much.
The maps which are stored in this way are often
the maps you have purchased. On the disadvantages, it costs you, unlike the
free services we mentioned above. On the advantages, if you buy a certain map,
or a map data, you can do almost anything you like with it. The most popular
map data in Britain is Explorer Series maps of 1:25.000 and Ordnance Survey’s
Landranger 1:50.000.
Ordnance
Survey’s Landranger 1:50.000
Once you have bought the map, you will be able to
print large maps as you want or upload data from laptops to handheld GPS
receivers, or even a smartphone with the appropriate applications. The
providers of driver-based mapping products mainly aimed at enthusiasts of
outdoor activities including Fugawi, Anquet, Mapyx Quo and Tracklogs. We look
at the Memory-Map a bit more detail. All these products have much in common,
but prices can vary so you should research before you buy.
With disk-based products, Memory-Map offers two
options for data: either you can buy online and download it from the web via
Digital Map Shop in www.digitalmapshop.com,
or you can order it on CD. The download will add more data, especially if you
need a new area quickly, but if you want larger maps, receiving data on disk
can avoid long download times.
As an example of its price, you can buy the whole
of England at the rate of 1:50.000 with $320 1:25.000 data is much more
expensive, and here you can choose to use Digital Map Shop. For example, you
can purchase one of many popular areas like national parks on the CD, each area
costs $150. However, in case of being online, you can select exactly the area
you want for $50 per square kilometer, down to $40 if you buy $155 by credit
card.
Memory-Map also offers online maps in the form of
TrailZilla (www.traizilla.com), which provides OS maps for the entire country
with a printing option. It costs $15 per year for the OS Landranger or $40 per
year for the Explorer. However, because it does not have the advantage of
storing the local data, it is basically the similar service to OS getamap.
Specialized maps
For general use, the mapping products and
services we have considered are definitely appropriate. However, they are only
the tips of the iceberg, and if your hobby is more specialized, there are
certain online maps which can meet your needs. We will not go into details
here, but you can find something interesting in the preliminary review of our
more specialized mapping products.
If you like what lies at the bottom than on the surface,
British Geological Survey (BGS) provide access to the geographical maps in
www.bgs.ac.uk. Geographic information is available at some rate, although you
have to pay for access to more data. Data of 1: 50,000 rates are free for
non-commercial use, and you can watch it online on the Geology of Britain
Viewer.
It includes zoom and normal pan controls, and you
can choose to pile up the geographic layers on the map or satellite images. You
can also adjust the clarity of geology, and if you double-click on any part of
the map, a pop-up window will appear to describe the rocks. Why don’t you try
to see what lies beneath your house?
Although most of the digital data of the local
map office is free for non-commercial use, you must pay the license fee if you
want to use a part of the map in publications like company brochures, walking
directions or club newsletter. However, the U.S. Geological Investigation
Bureau (USGS), Maps Department of the U.S. government, have another method to
give all data and maps to the public. This means that if you want to create a
hiking guide to the Appalachian Mountains, for example, you will not lose any
money to reproduce the USGS maps - good news for anyone interested in exploring
the outdoors.
To access the USGS Topo maps, go to USGS Store
(http://store.usgs.gov) and select the Map Locator and Downloader. Find the
area you want, then select Mark Points and click to place a marker over the
area that you are interested in. Now you can double-click the marker to select
the map to download. The maps are provided in Geo PDF format, viewable in Adobe
Acrobat Reader and allow you to select the elements to show map.
But we believe in free maps, unfortunately the online service
of the USGS is somewhat archaic. Instead of providing access to maps, each
download from the USGS Store is the exact copy of the paper map, so if you are
interested in the areas on the edge, it can stand between the two maps.
A strange and specialized map is a project which
is being carried out at San Diego University in California State. According to
the website of the project, the researchers hope to "understand the impact
of development by an event or idea which is dispersed throughout the world over
time and space. This project seeks out to draw the geologic map as well as the
college age and ideas on cyberspace, because the waves of using information
radiate to the external from the epicenter of a certain event. "The idea
of tracking terrorists and extremists on the web to see where the information
comes and how it spreads is an example of how this map can act. Perhaps it is
quite suitable that the web has become the driving force behind most of the
revolutions in the mapping field, several latest studies in the map research
department are related to trying to draw maps on the web.
Use an old-aged map
Map is a valuable
resource for historians and may be important as any written materials, but the
old map can attract anyone. If you want to watch your every street looks like,
Google Earth allows you to turn back the clock. Select the View option,
Historical Imagery, and a scroll bar will appear. For most locations, certainly
you will be limited to only a few points of times but some areas have more -
try New York, for example.
OS
OpenSpace provides everything you need to create an outstanding application
based on the map of the map office.
With the copyright has expired on many old maps
of the Ordnance Survey, the maps of Britain from the early 20th century or more
are currently available online. A website is particularly good, in which it
incorporates a variety of historical maps of the Ordnance Survey, the Sabre
Maps (www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps); it will appeal to historians and those who
are just curious about how their place looked like in the past. The maps are
available at the rate of 1 inch to 1 mile (1:63.360), and includes Popular
Edition version (from mid-1919 to 1926), New York Edition (from 1940), and
Seventh Series (from 1950 to 1960), although the later series do not provide
full coverage because a variety of maps still have copyright limit. Moreover,
you can have the road map at a rate of from half an inch to a mile (1:126.720),
¼ inch to a mile (1:253.440) at 10 miles to the inch (1:633.600) for some
points of time from 1920 to 1950.
In this digital map vacation, we have reviewed
how the web has revolutionized the way we view, create and interact with the
maps look like. Even with the fans of paper maps, especially those who
appreciate the beauty of a hand-drawn map, the modernization has helped
preserve and have easy access to map many years ago. The online services like
Google Maps can never be stopped as the Mappa Mundi, but the ability to draw
the map in the past and present and make these maps more accessible to anyone
with an internet connection must be certainly an equally important achievement
as well.
Reveal the secret: Embedding OS map onto the website
Embedding
the content such as maps from other websites can actually help to promote a
website, and you easily do this with the OS Openspace. As an illustration of
what can be achieved with Openspace, go to iCoastWeb at www.icoast.co.uk.
Because Openspace is free for non-commercial use, you can create something
impressive.
iCoast
is a map-based website presenting information for visitors going to Dorset
with 26 recreational activities, from diving to hunting fossils. Visitors can
quickly find interesting things to see and do, and the website also provides
practical information such as traffic links, weather and location of the visitors’
centers. Codes are associated with all activities for visitors and local
residents to be able to use Dorset coast safely and sustainably.
James
Feaver, a project officer of Geographical Information Systems (GIS),
explained how OS Openspace allows websites to operate. For example, one
benefit is that the project team does not need to worry about data management
which is used to draw the original map, as it has been provided by the OS
Openspace. Feaver said, "OS Openspace means that we have created something
outstanding, which we are very proud."
