This is a very interesting move by the OS: they are introducing OpenSpace, a free service for non-commercial use that allows us to embed OS maps covering England, Scotland and Wales in our web pages using a Javascript API. This is no doubt a response to both the pressure by the Free Our Data campaign and the popularity of very similar Google services (Google Maps and Google Earth). We will be able to overlay route lines and symbols onto the OS maps.
The service is due to go live early in 2008: at the moment it is in the alpha-testing phase and documentation covering the technical details is not available yet, but there is a FAQ that gives an overview of its operation. The extensive terms and conditions are laid out in the Developer Agreement, drafted in legalese to sew up the permitted usage as tight as a duck’s rear end.
When the service goes live, webmasters will need to register on the site and obtain an OpenSpace API Key. The scales of mapping available are:-
- outline of Great Britain (zoom level 1)
- overview of Great Britain (zoom level 2-3)
- MiniScale® (zoom level 4-5)
- 1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster (zoom level 6-7)
- 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster (zoom level 8-9)
- OS Street View® (zoom level 10-11)
Notice that this excludes 1:25000 mapping, the most useful scale for short walk routes. Anyway, using the 1:50000 scale it might save me the regular chore of making my own outline maps. Once I’ve studied the detailed documentation I should be able to work out a quick way of converting my Memory Map routes into the required OpenSpace format.
