Cadcorp Support for OS OpenData and OS MasterMap

UK-based GIS software developer Cadcorp has provided software support for three free-to-use data products from the national mapping agency of Great Britain, Ordnance Survey: OS Open Map - Local; OS Open Roads; and OS Open Rivers.

Support for the new data products was added in a recent service release of the Cadcorp Spatial Information System (SIS) software suite. The three vector-based datasets provide a nationally-consistent and high-level cartographic view of buildings, road networks and rivers and waterways throughout Great Britain.

Details, Roads and Rivers

According to the Ordnance Survey, OS Open Map - Local provides the most detailed level of buildings in the OS OpenData suite. OS Open Roads is a connected road network, and contains all classified roads (such as motorways and A & B roads) as well as officially named unclassified roads. OS Open Rivers is a generalised open water network showing the flow and the locations of rivers, streams, lakes and canals. The three products have been designed to be used together.

OS OpenData products are free to view or download for use in both personal and commercial applications and are used by many Cadcorp customers to provide a background against which to view their own business data. However, the recently supported data sets offer more than a static graphic backcloth as they describe identifiable features in the landscape. This opens up extensive possibilities to Cadcorp customers, allowing, for example, users of Cadcorp’s Map Modeller software to run network analyses on the Open Roads data. Users of Cadcorp’s free desktop product, Map Express, can access all of the OS OpenData, change the style of the OS maps, determine which types of features to display or highlight, perform spatial and attribute queries, and undertake thematic mapping.

Martin McGarry, managing director of Cadcorp, underlined the significance of supporting these free mapping products. Users are enabled to access OS OpenData products using simple user interface such as drag-and-drop. They don’t have to use data conversion packages, don’t have to restructure geometry, and don’t have to implement complex styling rules themselves. Cadcorp SIS takes care of all of these issues and builds fully structured, fully styled data at no extra cost to the user. Users can upload these three OS OpenData products to widely-used spatial databases with a single, simple, interactive loader programme. After loading the data, an easy-to-use wizard connects to the loaded data, again with all of the styling rules automatically applied.

Topographic Layer V9 Support

The new service release also includes support for OS MasterMap Topographic Layer V9 Schema. This will provide 76 new descriptive term attributes giving even greater detail to this flagship large-scale mapping product and means that Cadcorp SIS users will continue to benefit from access to the latest OS detailed map format styled per OS guidelines.

A new version of Map Express which supports the three Open Data products, and the new OS MasterMap Topographic Layer V9 Schema, can be downloaded from the Cadcorp website.