Once you are happy with the scale and position, click Project> New Print Composer.
A window will open asking for an ID/Title, however it is not required. Click OK.
A new window will open showing a blank page. To insert the map from QGIS click on ‘Add new map’ (see below).
Left click and then drag a rectangle to select the dimension of the added map. Once added the position of the map within the frame can be adjusted by selecting ‘Move item content’ (see below).
Click Item Properties on the task bar on the right. The specific scale can be selected here, and if you scroll down there are several other options including Position and Size. Here the dimensions of the map can be adjusted in millimetres.
Careful, as when altering the position and size the scale will also change.
OS VectorMap District is most useful to design a map within scales of 1:15 000-1:30 000, for this map of Southampton the selected scale is 1:17 000.
Once you are happy with the image you can export the map as an image or a PDF by selecting
‘Export as image’ or ‘Export as PDF’ respectively (see below). And save within an appropriate folder.
Your final JPEG image should looks similar to this:
Firstly, OS VectorMap District needs to be downloaded from the Ordnance Survey site:
www.os.uk/opendatadownload/products.html
Scroll to OS VectorMap District. Ensure that the data type is raster, and select grid reference square using the two letter reference list. Southampton lies in the SU grid reference square, so SU has been selected from the reference list.
Here is a larger image of the National Grid Reference squares:
Tick the box for Download (as seen in download page image).
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Next.
Fill in the details required and you will receive an email with a link to download the data as a .zip file. Save to a designated folder. Once the download is complete extract the file.
Now you will have a folder containing 100 TIFF image files (.tif) from SU00-SU99, which are 10km x 10km tiles that are numbered to their relative position in the grid:
Open QGIS from Start>All Programs>QGIS Brighton>QGIS Desktop 2.6.1
To open the OS VectorMap District (Raster) format Select ‘Add raster layer’ (see below)
Click ‘Browse’ and navigate to the downloaded files that have been extracted. Select the required TIFF files. In this case SU41 is the required image. Click ‘Open’.
The opened map will look similar to this:
Once open you can move about and investigate the map using some of these tools:
To restore the image to its original view right click on the raster image layer and click ‘Zoom to layer’.
The map is most functional for scales 1:15 000-1:30 000. For this tutorial we want a map of an area of Southampton at a scale of 1:17 000. Use the ‘Pan tool’, ‘Zoom in’ and ‘Zoom out’ to position the map over Southampton at an appropriate scale, or alternatively set the scale of the map by typing in the scale bar, which is at the bottom of the screen.
This is a simple guide for those with no previous knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS). This guide will introduce users to downloading OS OpenData™, creating simple maps with Quantum GIS (QGIS), and exporting map images as a PDF or JPEG file.
The aim of this exercise is to produce a map of Southampton at a scale of 1:17 000.
OS VectorMap® District (Raster) format is updated twice a year and is appropriate for maps of scale 1:15 000-1:30 000. If a greater level of detail is required we recommend OS VectorMap Local.
For more information on OS VectorMap District (Raster) format go to:
The topics covered in this guide include:
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