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Astun Technology is delighted to announce that it has won a  contract to supply a wide ranging GIS solution that will serve power and casual users of GIS software within the Council, partners in the MKi Observatory and the public through the Council’s website. The solution is underpinned by a fully featured Open Source spatial data warehouse that will provide access to the full range of Ordnance Survey base mapping, as well as the Council’s own mission critical data layers. The solution will also help the Council to meet its INSPIRE obligations.

This GIS refresh includes the adoption of QGIS Open Source software for power users. The remaining requirements are provided by Astun Technology’s iShare platform. iShare provides a fully featured public facing map portal with the ability to embed maps within web pages complete with location based searches, ‘find my nearest’ and incident reporting features.  Additionally iShare, will deliver GIS capabilities to users across the Council’s intranet, the MKi Observatory and via the Internet to mobile and homeworkers.  The whole Milton Keynes solution is delivered under an Open Enterprise Agreement which includes initial and ongoing training, consultancy and maintenance together with formal support contracts for the Open Source components.

“We are really looking forward to working with Milton Keynes Council on this exciting and prestigious project said Mike Saunt, Managing Director of Astun Technology. We will be making the most of Open Source technologies to deliver a hybrid solution tailored to the Council’s precise GIS needs,” continued Saunt.

Getmapping imagery has been used extensively in a recent survey of brownfield sites in the Thames Gateway, Europe’s largest regeneration area. The resulting report published by the wildlife charity Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust, highlights the alarming loss of habitats supporting rare species and nationally important invertebrate populations. 

Between and Buglife with Natural England carried out an extensive survey of the Thames Gateway area mapping over 450 sites and identifying 198 brownfield sites of high and medium importance for invertebrates. Brownfield sites are becoming increasingly important by providing refuges and links to other habitats to sustain biodiversity. In the Thames Gateway brownfield sites 15 priority species were identified some of which are not found elsewhere in the UK. 

Ironically the main threat to biodiversity in these areas, which nature has so successfully reclaimed, is regeneration which is focused primarily on brownfield land. The Buglife report has identified substantial losses of important brownfield sites as a result of new development and the failure of brownfield safeguards within the planning system. The report recommends a higher level of protection for brownfield sites of biodiversity value to ensure they are not developed in the future. 

For the recent survey work Getmapping supplied aerial imagery of the whole Thames Gateway area, as a seamless layer delivered via a WMS feed. “Having the imagery as a WMS feed is really convenient,” said Jamie Robins from Buglife. “We simply subscribe to the feed from within our GIS and have immediate access to a seamless layer of high resolution imagery. There is no data to manage, and no servers to update. Much of the imagery was very up to date and even in areas where the imagery was older we still had a very useful layer that we could use to zoom into individual sites to assess and prioritise for a visit. The original 198 sites were re-categorised as intact, partially destroyed, completely destroyed or having planning permission granted, continued Robins.

“This is a great example of supplying wide area aerial imagery in the most convenient way,” said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. “WMS has really taken off in the last few years enabling direct feeds from hosted datasets, relieving organisations of their IT overhead and data management issues. We now have a wealth of data available as a WMS feed including our own up to date and archived layers of aerial imagery plus the complete stacks of Ordnance Survey PSMA and OpenData mapping.”

The full Buglife report: ‘The state of brownfields in the Thames Gateway’ 

At Intergeo Getmapping will be launching two exciting new services, a flexible cameral rental service aimed at aerial survey companies plus a range of technical products and services that can be white labelled by geospatial solution providers.

Aerial survey is a tough business at the mercy of the weather and limited by the seasons. Making the most of available resources is vital to ensure economic operations. To tackle the fluctuation in seasonal demand, Getmapping is launching a range of flexible camera rental options which will help link costs directly to revenue generated. The options include:

• Standard System Rental - camera system rental for a fixed period for a fixed fee.
• Flexible Rental - camera system rental for an agreed duration with a reduced fixed fee, plus a fee per kilometre of data captured.
• Pay As You Go - camera system rental on a ‘pay as you go’ (per kilometre captured) basis, subject to minimum targets.
• Integrated Solution - camera system rental plus image processing also available as a full ‘pay as you go’ per kilometre solution.

Rental options include access to the latest camera technology, including the Vexel Ultracam Eagle and Visionmap A3 systems. 

The second announcement revolves around the ability to white label Getmapping’s range of value-added technical services. Partners will be able to offer and brand these services as their own and benefit from the substantial new opportunities that result. Getmapping partners will be able to offer:

• Web GIS - a simple to use web-based GIS that enables customers to view, analyse, edit and create maps from your data
• Public Map Viewer - a mapping API that enables customers to embed mapping and imagery into their web sites and share data with clients and the public online
•  Data Hosting - powerful data hosting facilities for a wide range of raster and vector data 
• Data Streams (WMS/WFS) - serve up raster and vector data to customers using Getmapping’s own OGC compliant WMS and WFS feeds
•  E-commerce (Web Shop) - a ready built online platform to sell your data

“Flexible camera rental makes economic sense for survey companies struggling to meet their data capture targets. We have benefitted from similar arrangements for a number of years and it now seems appropriate to open this out to the wider market,” said Dave Horner, Managing Director of Getmapping. “Technical services have already significantly changed our business model in the UK enabling us to provide a wider range of revenue generating options to our customer base. White labelling our technical service portfolio enables other geospatial solution providers to partner with us and add more value to what they can already deliver. It also allows us to leverage our investment in platforms, it’s a win, win whichever way you look at it,” explained Horner.

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About Getmapping Plc Getmapping Plc is a leading provider of aerial photography, LiDAR, digital mapping and web based services. Getmapping has offices in Hartley Wintney, UK, Cape Town and Centurion, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya. Getmapping was the first company to have up to date nationwide coverage of Britain and pioneered online delivery of aerial photography to business and the public at large. A reseller of professional mapping, oblique photography, height data, OS maps and third party aerial photography, Getmapping services a wide variety of markets including press and media, local authorities, property and construction, mining, environmental consultants and the public. It also provides a number of value added mapping products and services tailored to specific client needs including data hosting, online data delivery and web-based GIS. A pioneer of many online products through its website, Getmapping is the only company currently re-flying the whole of the UK at enhanced 12.5cm resolution.