[Talk-GB] Fwd: [ordnancemaps] Modern mapping

[Richard Fairhurst]

Hello GB/UK list!

An interesting follow-up by Richard Oliver (probably the most  
authoritative commentator on OS printed maps) to the previously  
forwarded posting about OS update schedules. I've only retained the  
most relevant first half.

Richard

[Gah - Apple Mail keeps putting the wrong From: address in this  
message. Apologies if it comes through twice.]


Begin forwarded message:
From: R.R.Oliver at exeter.ac.uk
Date: 29 October 2006 16:32:25 GMT
To: ordnancemaps at yahoogroups.co.uk
Subject: Re: [ordnancemaps] Modern mapping
Reply-To: ordnancemaps at yahoogroups.co.uk


An interesting posting from Philip Fry which I find waiting after a week
away!

As a general rule, the larger the scale of the map the more detail it
contains and therefore the more expensive it is to update it. Pretty
obvious, but there is a notable ratcheting-up of detail at certain scale
thresholds in certain landscapes: in Britain this takes place between
1:50,000 and 1:25,000, and is particularly obvious at the larger  
scale in
the depiction of field boundaries, but also in such matters as the  
finesse
with which buildings are depicted. As there is less detail on the  
1:50,000
it is easier either to update or to leave unrevised for a longer  
period of
time. The 1:25,000 is therefore inherently likely to display its
out-datedness more obviously than the 1:50,000. However, I think that
Philip will find that his 1:25,000s of the area to east of Bristol,  
&c, is
a mishmash of detail over 40 years old combined with some much more  
recent
building development on urban fringes. This, certainly, was the pattern
when I gave some recent NE Lincs/SE Yorks Explorers, with Access Land, a
'going-over'.

I think I said in a contribution a few weeks ago what I'll briefly  
repeat
here: we still await 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 mapping generated from the OS
MasterMap database which was originally due over two years ago. Once  
- or
IF - we have this, then a lot of these revision problems, on the  
1:25,000
in particular, OUGHT to disappear.

As for SatNav/GPS, etc, and its effect on paper map sales: I suspect  
that
the main change will be for the more 'reluctant' users of street mapping
at one extreme and of road-atlas-type mapping at the other. We may well
see a contraction in both markets, which have been two growth areas over
the past 25 years or so. I am more sceptical as to whether there  
would be
significant losses in the range 1:25,000-1:125,000, but if there were  
then
a print-on-demand service would probably step into the breach -  
though in
view of the recent abandoning in Canada of plans to go over to
print-on-demand for mapping in those scale ranges, where sales must be a
matter of 1 or 2 % of those for comparable OS mapping, following a  
public
outcry, OS might think twice about this!

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