Product Guide

This document contains additional theoretical information related to OS VectorMap District. All users will find the Product Information document useful and informative.

OS VectorMap District is a free mapping dataset designed for providing contextual mapping output on paper, PCs, hand-held devices, or the Internet. Available as pre-styled static images (Raster data) and points, lines, and polygons (Vector data). The vector format of the product consists of layers to enable you to customise and style output to suit your needs.

OS VectorMap District has been improved to offer enhanced functionality as well as offering greater consistency with other OS products, including OS Open Map – Local.

The product now offers significantly improved generalisation, resulting in a more attractive map that compliments the more detailed street-level OS VectorMap® Local product.

Key Features

The key features of OS VectorMap District product are:

Provides a clear visual backdrop map that can be easily styled to meet specific needs.
Please refer to the Product Cartographic Stylesheets webpage for styling options: os.uk/resources/carto-design/cartographic-stylesheets.html
Offers flexibility to user through ease of use to control content display.
Suitable for varying scenarios around the mid-range scale of 1:25 000
Analyse data in relation to important public buildings, roads, railways, lines and more
Compatible with other open datasets available from data.gov.uk and many other sources.

Applications

The purpose of OS VectorMap District data is to support a wide range of customer applications that utilise geographic information. These may include:

Backdrop mapping on your website

For your area, you may wish to take advantage of free data on the Government’s data.gov.uk website, for example, air pollution data. The layered structure of OS VectorMap District enables you to display the map to show only the features you want to show – for example, roads, place names and buildings.

You may want to style the data as a faded map backdrop to ensure your own or third-party overlaid data are clearly portrayed. For example, backdrop mapping can be used by public sector organisations to share information with the public. Such applications include providing the location of GP surgeries or dentists to the public, or the performance of schools based on exam results in a district.

Develop an interactive web application

OS VectorMap District has been designed for on-screen use, with generalised detail and an appropriate level of content that gives an uncluttered appearance. Subscribers to the OS OpenSpace® application programming interface (API) can build location-based services using the map to guide smartphone users and provide location-specific information.

Display your business location

Do you want to tell your customers how to get to your business? The district view of OS VectorMap District is ideal for creating a map of a suburban area or part of a city, complete with locality names for context.

Your customers can then zoom in to your business at a street level using the OS VectorMap District product.

OS VectorMap District topographic features are generalised representations of real-world objects, including buildings, roads, railways, and rivers. The data also includes non-topographic features such as administrative and electoral boundaries (GML and Shapefile format only), cartographic text and symbols.

Generalisation

The detail within OS VectorMap District has been generalised from Ordnance Survey large-scale data. Map generalisation is the process of reducing the scale and complexity of map detail whilst maintaining the important elements and characteristics of the location.

Map generalisation comprises of the following processes:

Selection/omission: some features that appear at larger scales are not selected at the smaller scales. For example, in the public amenities layer individual features in close proximity can be grouped to a single point.
Simplification: simplification can take a number of forms in OS VectorMap District. It can be line simplification, for example, in a vector product; a very winding stream could have the number of data points that represent it reduced.
Exaggeration: features that are small but are too important to a particular landscape to be omitted are enlarged. For example, some isolated rural buildings are often enlarged to a minimum size rather than being omitted.
Aggregation: aggregation is the combining of a number of small features to make a larger one, such as buildings.
Symbolisation: features that are shown in detail in other OS products, such as OS VectorMap Local may be shown by standard symbolisation in OS VectorMap District. For example, railway stations are depicted as point symbols.
Displacement: the movement of the representation of a feature away from its ground position in order to maintain its prominence. There is very little displacement in OS VectorMap District, but in certain circumstances, some features may be moved away from adjacent detail if their representation would otherwise be lost; for example, some buildings are moved away from road edges to ensure they remain prominent.

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Key Features

The key features of OS VectorMap District product are:

Provides a clear visual backdrop map that can be easily styled to meet specific needs.

Please refer to the Product Cartographic Stylesheets webpage for styling options: os.uk/resources/carto-design/cartographic-stylesheets.html

Offers flexibility to user through ease of use to control content display.

Suitable for varying scenarios around the mid-range scale of 1:25 000

Analyse data in relation to important public buildings, roads, railways, lines and more

Compatible with other open datasets available from data.gov.uk and many other sources.

Applications

The purpose of OS VectorMap District data is to support a wide range of customer applications that utilise geographic information. These may include:

Backdrop mapping on your website

Develop an interactive web application

Display your business location

Your customers can then zoom in to your business at a street level using the OS VectorMap District product.

Generalisation

Map generalisation comprises of the following processes:

Selection/omission: some features that appear at larger scales are not selected at the smaller scales. For example, in the public amenities layer individual features in close proximity can be grouped to a single point.

Simplification: simplification can take a number of forms in OS VectorMap District. It can be line simplification, for example, in a vector product; a very winding stream could have the number of data points that represent it reduced.

Exaggeration: features that are small but are too important to a particular landscape to be omitted are enlarged. For example, some isolated rural buildings are often enlarged to a minimum size rather than being omitted.

Aggregation: aggregation is the combining of a number of small features to make a larger one, such as buildings.

Symbolisation: features that are shown in detail in other OS products, such as OS VectorMap Local may be shown by standard symbolisation in OS VectorMap District. For example, railway stations are depicted as point symbols.

Displacement: the movement of the representation of a feature away from its ground position in order to maintain its prominence. There is very little displacement in OS VectorMap District, but in certain circumstances, some features may be moved away from adjacent detail if their representation would otherwise be lost; for example, some buildings are moved away from road edges to ensure they remain prominent.