New Popular Edition
From OpenStreetMap
Contents |
What is the New Popular Edition?
The New Popular Edition (NPE) is a complete set of 1-inch-to-the-mile mapping of England and Wales, published by the Ordnance Survey in the 1940s and now out of copyright. It has been scanned, (roughly) orthorectified (i.e. squared up), and cut into 1km x 1km tiles which are available for tracing and for mashups.
Tracing from the New Popular Edition
Using Potlatch
Potlatch has NPE tiles available as a background layer. The rectification is greatly improved over that used by JOSM and npemap; however, coverage is as yet incomplete and more will be added over time. At present, you can see zoom level 14 tiles for:
- Wales and the Marches
- West Midlands and parts of the East Midlands
- Chilterns and Cotswolds
- Cornwall
- Suffolk
- Lake District
To check you're at zoom level 14, hover your mouse over the 'Edit' tab and the URL will have 'zoom=14' in it. (Smaller-scale tiles will be added once level 14 is complete.)
Sometimes the NPE tiles are slightly misaligned. To line them up with real data (e.g. from a GPS track), hold down Space and drag the map. (There's a small bug in Potlatch that means you may have to press Esc afterwards if it starts a new way without you wanting one.)
Using JOSM
JOSM with NPE base layer - use the WMSPlugin. The NPE option should be there as default.
The JOSM plugin shows the expected intersections of the kilometre squares with blue crosses. When creating data, make sure these align within the kilometre square(s) you're working in - this will minimise error.
Tag 'source=npe' to indicate the way comes from NPE maps.
Using the new tiles elsewhere
The newly rectified tiles used by Potlatch are at http://richard.dev.openstreetmap.org/z/x/y.jpg, where z, x and y are standard "like-Google" tile co-ordinates. Please respect the licence which is the same as that used by npemap - tracing is unrestricted, but the images themselves are subject to a non-commercial restriction which may be relaxed on application.
Requests for NPE Potlatch background layer
Coverage will not be complete at first: areas will be added sheet-by-sheet over time. If you'd like to request a sheet/area, please add it here and sign with your username.
- Lewes and the Ouse Valley. Namely Rodmell, Southease and Breaky Bottom.ShakespeareFan00 17:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
- Isle of Man ShakespeareFan00 19:17, 12 April 2008 (BST)
- Isle of Wight ShakespeareFan00 19:17, 12 April 2008 (BST)
- Scilly Isles ShakespeareFan00 19:17, 12 April 2008 (BST)
- South Hampshire AndyS 18:08, 08 June 2008 (UTC)
- Lake District steve8 15:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
- Norfolk blackadder 10:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lincolnshire blackadder 10:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- (insert here)
Errors to fix
Due to a bug in the first version of the reprojection script, there are some mismatched tiles at the edge of sheets; these are being fixed. Any other errors are usually the result of Richard typing in the wrong origin for the sheet. :)
- Worcester and Ombersley (some)
- Hughley - halfway up Wenlock Edge, and a bit further south
- Just south of Brockton, Shropshire
- north side of Land's End sheet? (Perranporth etc.)
- just south of Stratford (sheet edge again)
Other projects using New Popular Edition mapping
- npemap.org.uk - map browser and postcode collection interface
- gpx.npemap.org.uk - generate GPX files by tracing
- Freemap-NPE - OSM countryside mapping on an NPE base layer
More info
- FAQ at npemap.org.uk
