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Google coverage of my area won't be older than google maps itself!

Finally, I can see past my own childhood!

W-what do you mean they never updated it... again? Oh. Okay.

There is a disagreement between OS and Google on what Google's licensing terms mean. Currently this has prevented the use of OS map layers on google (though they are used on Streetmap and bing. So I think it unlikely that google maps will use this soon.

I have no idea who is right about the interpretation of the terms of service, but it is preventing google's use of open sources OD maps

Here is the web browser based mapping service:
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.u...

I mean, sure you can order the data sets to use in your own application also, but claiming that they do not provide a mapping viewer of their own kinda misses the mark

For those who might be interested, here is a link to the ordnance survey page where they describe the process used to create the map.

Can you give a glimpse at the process this requires? I assume it has to be algorithmic in some way but it's still baffling to me how it's done. What sort of errors happen?

Absolutely. You can find a good explanation here.

That would stop mashup services from working easily, for example embedded maps, which I work on: openspace

They could have purchased TomTom, for example and had everything up and running immediately.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. From Apple's mapping attribution page:

© 2006-2012 TomTom
Business listings data © Acxiom, 2012.
Map data © AND.
Property parcel data for USA. © CoreLogic Inc., 2012.
Satellite imagery data © DigitalGlobe, 2012.
Map and postal data © DMTI, 2012. This software contains Postal Code OM Data copied by Apple under a sub-license from DMTI Spatial Inc., a party directly licensed by Canada Post Corporation. The Canada Post Corporation file from which this data was copied is dated 2012.
Business listings data © Factual 2012.
Map data © Getchee, 2012.
© INCREMENT P CORP., 2012, http://www.incrementp.co.jp/gc01info/e/legal01.html.
Map data © Intermap, 2012.
Map data © LeadDog, 2012.
Business listings data © Localeze, 2012.
Mapping data for Australia and New Zealand. © MapData Services Pty Ltd., 2012, PSMA http://www.nowwhere.com.au/lic/NowWhereLic.htm.
Map data © MDA Information Systems, Inc., 2012.
Neighborhood data © Urban Mapping, 2012.
Map data © 2012 Waze.
âoeReviews from Yelpâ Yelp, 2012.
(CanVec)
© Department of Natural Resources Canada. All rights reserved.
http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html
(CGIAR-CSI SRTM)
CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/
Flickr Shapefiles Public Dataset, Version 1.0, http://www.flickr.com/
(GeoNames)
GeoNames and contributors, http://www.geonames.org.
(GlobCover)
© ESA 2010 and UCLouvain, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.nasa.gov

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2012. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

(OSDM)
© Commonwealth of Australia, 2012. This data has been used with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this software, and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose. http://spatial.gov.au

(OSM)
OpenStreetMap contributors, http://www.openstreetmap.org/
(StatCan)
Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca
(TIGER/Line® fi

UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.

Not a grid, and their size does vary, but they are generally only a few hundred yards across; Google Maps will do an outline of the approximate area that a postcode covers, but as a rule of thumb a postcode covers an average of 15 properties.

Oh, and forget using any 'leaked postcode db'. The Ordnance Survey made available a CSV file that maps postcodes to coordinates as part of their OpenData project a few years ago; usage only requires attribution, not payment.

They are a grid on the data that I got from http://wikileaks.org/wiki/UK_government_database_of_all_1,841,177_post_codes _together_with_precise_geographic_coordinates_and_other_information,_8_Jul_2009

**take out the space in the url, I got a filter error trying to post**

The only reason I found that there was a variance was due to holes like parks etc... There are just gaps in the matrix.

The opendata project doesn't have postcodes, I just checked, but it does have some good stuff - thanks.

The clue to the accuracy and detail is "Ordnance Survey Map" right in the top left corner of the map.

So the credit goes to these http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ and not Microsoft.

UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.

Not a grid, and their size does vary, but they are generally only a few hundred yards across; Google Maps will do an outline of the approximate area that a postcode covers, but as a rule of thumb a postcode covers an average of 15 properties.

Oh, and forget using any 'leaked postcode db'. The Ordnance Survey made available a CSV file that maps postcodes to coordinates as part of their OpenData project a few years ago; usage only requires attribution, not payment.

The reality is that the problem has never been with Ordnance Survey, but with the terms and conditions of Google Maps. It has absolutely nothing to do with derived data or our licensing terms but everything to do with Google claiming the right to use any data you display in Google Maps in any way it sees fit, even if it doesn’t belong to them.

Frustratingly, this is only a problem that exists with Google Maps. No such clause appears in the terms of any other mapping API, including Bing Maps and our own OS OpenSpace.

The route passes through the Chilterns, an officially designated area of outstanding natural beauty. I'm in favour of the link but some pretty stuff will get trashed.

http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2011/04/cycling-in-the-chilterns

- A good description of where you are, including where you started, what landmarks you've passed recently, what trail you were following or are on, GPS coordinates if you have them, and anything else you can think of that will help your rescuers find you easily.

Is there an easy, standard way to give a position from an American map? (i.e. if you don't have a GPS.)

In Great Britain the "National Grid" divides the whole country into 100km*100km squares, which are further subdivided. The most popular walking maps cover 10km*10km, and have gridlines at 1km intervals, so you can (by estimating) give a position to within 100m. I've was taught how to use these maps at school (it was on an exam when I was 16).

See here and an example map here.

This revision guide for 15-16 year olds shows what I had to learn (at the bottom).

(I'm interested, since producing these maps for GB is presumably very expensive, as they're incredibly detailed. I'm not sure if it would be feasible for a country as large as the USA.)

- A good description of where you are, including where you started, what landmarks you've passed recently, what trail you were following or are on, GPS coordinates if you have them, and anything else you can think of that will help your rescuers find you easily.

Is there an easy, standard way to give a position from an American map? (i.e. if you don't have a GPS.)

In Great Britain the "National Grid" divides the whole country into 100km*100km squares, which are further subdivided. The most popular walking maps cover 10km*10km, and have gridlines at 1km intervals, so you can (by estimating) give a position to within 100m. I've was taught how to use these maps at school (it was on an exam when I was 16).

See here and an example map here.

This revision guide for 15-16 year olds shows what I had to learn (at the bottom).

(I'm interested, since producing these maps for GB is presumably very expensive, as they're incredibly detailed. I'm not sure if it would be feasible for a country as large as the USA.)

Rather than linking to an old BBC article, you're better off linking to OpenSpace on the Ordinance Survey's website, as the data has already been released. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/

I'm not entirely hopeful that the Post Office will follow any time soon: the postcode and address data is a real cash cow for them.

"the data should be made available on the basis that public money paid for it" I agree, and so does the Guardian. Unfortunately the UK government tends to see it as: "The public paid for it, so we have a duty to get the public back the most money for it we can, none of this socialist giving it away for free!" This is why the maps of the UK cost so much, unlike in the US. So it's not so much CRU as all the UK.

Please explain how manual coordinates are more reliable than GPS and/or laser. I fully appreciate that value of being able to do it manually just in case, but that doesn't seem to be what you're talking about here.

Manual co-ordinates is done by triangulation. This is why ordnance survey maps are the best in the World. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite and they supply Military "relief maps" not available to the public. I could call in a map reference grid and a target can be hit to within a maximum of Three Feet over a distance of 900 miles. This is why one's mathematical skills are are paramount in the Navy and Airforce and you cannot rely on automatic systems to just do the job. Laser's and GPS have underlying problems are not accurate enough. There were some CIA agents on the ground that tried to kill Saddam in OP Telic, but got the co-ordinates completely wrong and missed by nearly 800 metres. I cannot really say much more MrResistor, but I hope that gives you a small insight. It is akin to shooting a robber but you shoot the wrong person instead. American cops do it all the time! *giggle*

Also the on-line publishing maps need to go through a âencryptionâ(TM) process whereby map coordinates are transformed to an unknown coordinate system (not in Lat/Long).

Google Maps is handy as a quick reference, but as a mapping application it's not the best. It's designed as a road map, and misses out a lot of important information for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.

MultiMap does a bit better as it uses Ordnance Survey maps at certain scales, but I ended up going back to paper OS maps because MM is soooo slow, and you can take a paper map with you.

Credit to Google though, they modified the route planning algorithms fairly recently (a few weeks ago I think). It used to give heavy preference to major roads at the expense of 'minor' ones, with some hilarious consequences. Campbeltown to Glasgow used to recommend two ferry trips, one of which only operates during the summer, instead of the three to four hour drive it recommends now.

Well Ireland is a smaller country, so sure, there are fewer roads and road signs; Britain has circa 15 times the population (and thus potential tax receipts to spend on such a project) but probably not 15 times as many signposts. Besides, Ireland has been replacing distance signs with km versions on a continual basis over the last decade or so as they wear out; only the speed limits were done all at once.

With regard to the advantages, little things like Ordnance Survey maps and the British national grid being metric (since 1936!) would suggest there might be advantages to using the same system on signposts.

P.S. Using "Éire" while speaking English is about as appropriate as using "Deutschland" or "Suomi" in English - e.g. not very!

what annoys me is that whenever the British government/local government or other British institutions put this sort of information online here in the UK - they expect to be able to charge for it (our taxes paid for the running of these institutions etc) ...

This is a consequence of the decision to devolve the management of certain parts of government and give them what is known as trading fund status. Effectively, these have different financial arrangements to other parts of government. To quote from here:

Each is an arms-length trading organisation but with a duty to observe specific financial targets set by the Treasury and involving capital returns, borrowing and transparency of reporting. They must also deliver quality standards and fitness for purpose in their products and services within government policy.

The best-known example of a trading fund (some might say most notorious) is Ordnance Survey, the UK mapping agency.

And yet you and I both know that any uncoloured ;-) road with dashed edges outside a town or city generally means trouble, unless it's a driveway to a posh house or something. So OK then...white roads that aren't marked as being in built-up areas (i.e. surrounded by orangey-brown). All this just goes to show how difficult it all is. I mean, if you look at the 1:50,000 or 1:10,000 views of the place on Multimap, that track is shown as a full-blown road on both of them; yet both the OS 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 (zoom in from here) maps show the true situation very clearly.

And yes, I do live on a white road...and yes, it's tarmaced, or "metalled" as the OS legend likes to put it. :-) Um, or used to, they don't seem to draw that distinction any more, maybe that's where I'm going wrong. Did they used to do that on the old 1" to a mile maps (showing my age there!)?

Ordnance is not a spelling error in this context : http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

Jeremy

While google maps/earth is useful for navigation what they and other online maps seem to be missing is the terrain contour lines.

Now these don't look very pretty, but if you know how to use them you can read off the altitude & gradient of terrain features. Very useful if you're planning to do some hiking.

Though I have partly answered myself - the OS website http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/ has online UK maps with this data (try searching for Buttermere).

It's called the Ordinance Survey...

No it's not. It's called: Ordnance Survey

You can buy everything from t-shirts to tea-towels with the London underground map embossed, and many tourists do, so I guess it's a bit of a cash cow.

As far as I know, all the Underground related items are licenced by LT, so they probably enforce copyright issues.

However, since they also licence the use of the map in diaries and such, then the cost of a licence is probably not too high.

The Ordnance Survey in the UK has a full page devoted to copyright issues, which indicates that, for some uses, the cost for reproduction may simply be an acknowledgement of the original copyright owner.

I'd give my eye'd teeth for that service with Ordnance Survery Maps available as well. Just imagine a free, scrollable zoomable Ordnance Survey map mmmm.

Of course they are useless as street maps, but ideal for just about everything else (yes I know you can pay for online Ordnance Survey maps)

On the contrary - the main source of map data in the UK (also Ireland, and I believe India) is the Ordnance Survey, founded in the year dot to prepare for an expected Napoleonic invasion.

Whilst it's good to see serious discussion of open-source benefits to UK govt, one wonders if a related discussion could take place to explore the benefits to the UK economy of reducing the lengthy 125-year term of govt copyright which currently prevents open-source projects from using and adding to 100-year old Victorian map data produced by the Ordnance Survey. The nearest open-source projects can get is ancient pre-125 year map data which are quite interesting as historical data but are seriously deficient for mapping because they are missing large areas of development from the late 19th century. By contrast, in the US, it seems the USGS has a more favorable policy of open-sourcing their data. The result is open-source mapping projects and software that use and extend the USGS datasets, in many cases also leading to commercially successful products.