Maps & Mapping
How to use the Digital Mapping facilities
This is a sub-page of Introduction to the Great Collaboration/How to Use this Site
If you are already familiar with our digital mappoing and have no need of this guide, please jump directly to the available maps themselves, please click here
Public Maps:
The digital maps that we present - via a product called XMAP - use a facility therein called 'Public Map'. Public Map presents a digital map of the United Kingdom as the 'underlay' or base map, on top of which we can add layers of information. These layers are held in a layer box at the top left of the map. In the example below (a public map called Environment), the layers are in the box marked "Floods"
In this example above, you see only the base map - no layers are displayed
Note that the map is fully scrollable (up/down, left/right) and zoomable (in/out):
To scroll, left-click on your mouse anywhere on the land, and drag the map to where you want it
To zoom, there are two methods:
Use the '+' and '-' buttons at the top left to zoom in or out
If your mouse has a scrolling wheel, zoom in or out by rolling the wheel
The details on the map change dramatically the more that one zooms in. The range of zooming is huge:
Fully zoomed out, you see the whole of Britain (only major cities, no roads)
Fully zoomed in, the full screen can represent less than one metre on the ground
In between: you can choose a whole village, a whole parish, a whole county, a whole region
In this next example, we have zoomed in and scrolled down and left to show part of the South West of England (known for flooding), and have clicked on the down arrow on the layer box ("Floods"):
Note the choice of Flood layers available. Layers are turned on or off by "toggling" - click once on a layer name to turn it on or expand the choices, click on it a second time to turn off or reduce the choices.
In this next example, we have toggled on the 'Flood Zones' layer. Note how the Flood Zones line in the layer box has expanded to show the legend used in the resulting map (light blue for FloodZone 2, darker for FloodZone 3):
As yet, there is no flooding information showing on the map. The black circle with the white tick indicates that we have selected the desired collection ("Flood Zones"). To add in the data, click on one of the FloodZone layers - say, FZ2. That produces the picture below:
This is not particularly impressive, but look what happens when you zoom in:
Now you can see how the Somerset Levels get their name - much of the winter is spent underwater!
You can toggle on as many layers as you wish at the same time - depending on the topic, this can either help to improve the understanding, or - as in this case - would totally confuse the whole picture. To toggle a layer on or off, remember, simply click on the layer itself in the layer box. To close the whole layer box (to get it out of the way), just click on the up arrow in its top right corner. The selected layers will stay on when you close the box - open the box again later if you want to change the layers, or close them all down.
'Public Map also has a facility - called "Info Click" -that enables you to access the data on any individual record displayed on the map. This does not apply to an area map such as the Floods above, so let us choose another Public Map to demonstrate. This time, we have gone with Parish Activities:
Click on the 'Parish Project' layer box, and open the 'Community Orchards' layer:
Note the orchards all over East Anglia, zoom in and click on the one just south of Norwich:
Note that there are actually two orchard icons in that area (if we had zoomed in further, they would have clearly separated), so to be sure which of the two you actually intended, Info Click asks you to select which one you want. Let's go for Mulbarton:
Note that the data record for Mulbarton has opened, to give you the data that you need should you wish to connect to the person running the Community Orchard - in this case, the Parish Clerk. Note that this is a scrollable box, there is more data available. Click on the 'x' in the top right of the Info Click box to close it.
Postcode Search:
To jump to a specific postal code area, simply enter the postal code into the Search box at the top right of the screen. In the example below, we have entered a post code for the other side of the country, just so that you can see the effect:
Note that the entered postcode has a matching entry in the drop-down box below it. If you do not get a drop-down box, then either the postcode you entered is incorrect, or is so new that the Ordnance Survey has yet to record it on their digital map of the UK. To jump to the desired area, click on the entry in the drop-down box (NOT the entry in the search box above it):
See how the scale has changed for the new location. You may wish to zoom out a bit to confirm where the map has jumped to:
Summary:
On this page, you have learned about how to use the digital mapping facility in the Great Collaboration's Knowledgebase:
How to zoom in and out
How to scroll up, down, left, and right
How to add/remove layers to/from the base map for enhanced information
How to Info Click to get access to the data record associated with any mapped feature
How to use the Postcode search box
click on the link above to go to the available maps
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