New Maps

If you have been looking at the map facility on the main Picsmap web site, you may have noticed that the maps are different. I am now using the free map data that the Ordnance Survey have released. These include the 1:250,000 raster maps and Miniscale maps though not, unfortunately, the 1:50,000 Land Ranger maps.

The main benefit of the new maps, apart from cost, is the addition of contours and relief information so the nature of the terrain can be seen. This is particularly helpful in the more hilly parts of Scotland. 

 I have been using the maps from Collins Bartholomew which cost over £500 per year for licensing  so this is obviously quite a saving. However, I would like to thank the people at Collins Bartholomew for providing the map data over the years since this site could not have been created without them. When I first started work on Picsmap in 2005 the only options for the map data I wanted were Collins and the OS. OS wanted £25,000 per year so as a one man company, that wasn't an option. The Google maps API didn't quite do what I wanted and is not free for commercial use. So Collins £550/year was very reasonable and allowed me to start work on designing and developing the code for the website.

 The OS have also released 1:25000 scale maps which I am looking at putting on the website but that requires more work. These maps are not as detailed as the explorer series but still show individual streets etc. I am not completely convinced that this level of detail would benefit the site. Any feedback either way would be helpful. 

Posted at 04:14PM Aug 29, 2010 by Norman Bews in Picsmap  |  Comments[0]