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Forum → How Do I... & Other Questions → Maps - OS Map Tiles
Having purchased the OS map tiles, I was wondering if you can upgrade these map tiles? I have encountered a couple of times where the OS paper map has been updated with new features which are not on the supplied OS map tiles.
Cheers for now
Gary Pocklington
As a result of doing some exploring I notice that the OS have an area on their website called OS Open Data. This includes various map types that you can download for free. Are these suitable or compatible with the Recorder 6 software? If so how do you load them in?
If not, what are other options that are available for mapping the data from Recorder 6 onto maps that are reasonably current?
Bearing in mind that I am an individual and not an organisation so I have limited funds.
Cheers for now
Gary
Regarding OS Open Data.
Have a look at http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=1459
Mike
Mike, thanks for the reply.
I'll go through what I have tried, to add to the picture.
I downloaded the OS Vector Map District(Raster) files from the OS website. This gives you a download which comprises a couple of folders. You get three types of of files. One is the Tiff-Lzw files which are the maps. Then there are .tab and .tfw files which come in a folder called georeferencing. Not sure what these are for but in terms of Recorder 6 I cannot see how they fit?
I tried uncompressing the tiff-lzw files but they still did not get recognised in Recorder 6. I then saved them as Windows bitmap files. They were then recognised by recorder.
However, on the screen when you try and load the map it asks for South West and North East co-ordinates. I have to admit I don't know where or how you work that out.
Recorder does have help for the its own map system but perhaps it is my own knowledge that is not quite there in understanding the mapping systems. Can anyone offer further help?
Cheers for now
Gary
.tab is a MapInfo file type and .tfw ESRI Arc type. One option would be to open the tab file in MapInfo and export as .mif which Recorder can import. Probably not that hekpful if you don't have MapInfo, but one of the free GIS programs might be able to do the same. Another possibility would be to try opening the tab file in WordPad or similar and you might find details of the co-ordinates. If it isn't obvious post the the contents here and we might be able to interpret it (assuming this doesn't breach the terms of the OS downloaded data).
Hello Gordon,
Thanks for your reply.
These are the parameters stored in the .tab file. I presume that they are referring to the corners of the map? Not sure how that translates into the South West/North East corners required in Recorder.
(520000,140000) (0,4000) Label "Pt 1",
(530000,140000) (4000,4000) Label "Pt 2",
(530000,150000) (4000,0) Label "Pt 3",
(520000,150000) (0,0) Label "Pt 4"
CoordSys Earth Projection 8, 79, "m", -2, 49, 0.9996012717, 400000, -100000
Units "m"
I will probably regret this question but how much does software like MapInfo cost? I have found a 'free' trial version of a product called MapMaker. Haven't had a chance to look at it have you any thoughts on this software?
Cheers for now
Gary
If you are expecting the area in question to cover a 10k square to the south of Reigate then the southwest corner would be TQ20000400000 and the northeast TQ30000500000. If not, I will have a longer look at it and try to get it right. Looks like it would be a faily low resolution image.
On the cost issue, the answer is probably quite a lot but I don't actually know. There is a list of GIS software here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geographic_information_systems_software but only know about MapInfo myself so can't really help any further with that, although others may be able to offer advice.
Hello Gordon,
Yes, those co-ordinates were correct for the map tile. Thank-you.
This is a recap of how I have understood things and what I have done.
The downloaded files from the OSOpenData site are in Tiff-LZW format. Even after uncompressing these it is not recgnised by Recorder 6. Saving it as a Windows bitmap does make it readeable by recorder.
The downloaded files ( in my case for TQ) comprise 100km map in 10km x 10km tiles. To enable these to be recognised in the Recorder system you need the South West and North East co-ordinates.
These are obtained from the .tab files which come as part of the download. Each tile has a corresponding .tab file. So if you are loading TQ24, then the co-ordinates are in tq24.tab. This file can be opened in Notepad. The lines in this file that are of interest are the ones labelled "Pt 1". and "Pt 2" These are the South West and North East coordinates respectively.
It is the figures in the first brackets that are relevant. Using the data in the previous post as an example. The South West (Pt 1) figures are 520000 and 140000. If you drop the first characters of each and then place the two character map ref e.g. TQ in front of the first number So that gives a South West ref. of TQ2000040000 which for Recorder you break down to TQ2040.
Repeat the same process using the Pt 3 numbers (530000,150000) to get the North East coordinate. This becomes TQ3050.
It has allowed me to load those maps in. Though I must admit it is a rather painful and slow way to get there. I hope what I have wriiten is correct but happy to be corrected if not.
Cheers for now
Gary
Pretty much right, although it is points 1 and 3 that represent SW & NE in the example given. If the filename is tq24 then the points should be tq2040 and tq3050 as you already know its size, which should speed up calculations for the rest - e.g. SU78 will have corners SU7080 and SU8090. Will still take a while, though
Thanks Gordon for correcting my error.
It does seem to me that it is not the best way to get an efficient map system. As you said it is
a low resolution.
I will have to do some further research and look through the link that you put in the previous response.
Cheers for now
Gary Pocklington
I have no specific information on this, but I can't see in the economic climate the OS Map Tiles for Recorder being updated in the near future. The OS maps in Recorder are the only free to end users source of 1:50,000 maps I know of and as you say, they are now 10 years old and beginning to show their age. Local Records Centres etc. get their mapping at a special rate, but the rest of us pay at commercial rates, which is prohibitive at about £18 for a 20kmX20km tile and I think an annual charge on top of this I gave up the few local OS tiles I had when they put an annual minimum charge on them. If you do come up with something then please let us know.
Mike
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