Digimap: Geomni

I was just in the right mood to listen to Ian Holmes, from Edina, introduce one of the latest additions to the Digimap suite of resources. David Sherren’s spectacular map-based ARCLIB Quiz was proving challenging, so I was open to any help I could get! Geomni, is certainly impressive and I hope funds will allow us to subscribe to it. It includes 3 datasets:

1. UK Map – rich map data for Greater London

2. UK Building – helping you to see the age and use of buildings across the UK

3. UK Land – looking at land use across the UK.

The datasets are updated twice a year. As with other Digimap resources the package comes with two options: Roam to view and annotate the maps and Data Download to load the information into GIS or CAD packages for further manipulation.

Ian’s presentation gave some useful examples of how you might use the data. I’ve captured a few below:

As long as your students are exploring Greater London, UK Map could be helpful for any 3D Modelling assignments as it includes building height as well as footprint data. You can see if buildings are residential or commercial and even see the upper-floor details of commercial buildings. If you are planning to integrate a new development, for example, you can even see how far the tree canopy extends. The aerial view of the area is 4x more detailed than on Aerial Digimap.

UK Buildings might be useful for analysing anything requiring the height of buildings in an area, for example, utility companies might use it to decide where to site a new 5G mast so it can get the most effective range.

UK Land provides raster data, showing primary land use, e.g., inland water, wetlands, farms, mining areas, business parks etc. It is useful for large area analysis such as planning the HS2 route.

I think we were all impressed with the case study examples and, helpfully, Edina has included a whole lot more on the Digimap Resources page. (Look to the very top right of the Digimap screen, subscribers – no I hadn’t noticed it either!)

Did it give me any clues for the ARCLIB Quiz? No but it was really interesting and you can find out more about Geomni by visiting the Digimap website.

Review by Greta Friggens, University of Portsmouth