CNCC Cave Map - its back!

[GarDouth]

A few people had been asking for the return of the cave map on the CNCC website. I hadn't realised how popular it was!

Originally it was set up to use Bing Maps mostly because Bing offer an OS mapping layer so I thought this would be most helpful for cave locations. It had been working fine however a while ago it broke and I had to take it offline. It's been one of those things that I've been meaning to get around to fixing but keep forgetting.

It broke because Microsoft have removed the free tier of use for Bing Maps so if we wanted to continue to use it on the website we'd have to pay. After begging Microsoft to give us a free account they said no so the map has moved over to Google. It still does mostly the same thing, just without the OS Map layer.

Anyway, that's the background but it's back now so fill your boots...

Cave Location Map

All the caves of our region on one interactive map!

cncc.org.uk

 

[CNCC]

Thank you Gary... awesome

Remember folks, the map does not show every cave - the definitive cave catalogue is (and always will be) Northern Caves:

Northern Caves - a comprehensive guide to the caves of northern England

The new series of Northern Caves documents new discoveries along with all of the know cave passage in the North of England. Northern Caves will continue to be first and foremost ‘a guide to the caves’ and not a ‘how-to-do-it’ guide to the various caving activities which might be undertaken in...

northerncaves.co.uk

Our map only shows caves which are in our database (where you can search for access information, route descriptions, topos etc). We have no fixed rules about which caves do and do not feature in our database, although in general it should include all the most popular caves, and the majority of caves more than about 250m in length or 50m in depth (i.e. the caves that people are most likely to want to visit).

If you spot any errors, or if you think a cave is missing from our database which should be on there, please let us know:

Report a hazard, error or other caving issue

We rely on the information provided by cavers to keep people up to date with important things such as defective anchors or other hazards underground.

cncc.org.uk

 

[Steve Clark]

Not in anyway implying that this is needed, but if you do want to use the OS layers reasonably easily, you can use OS DataHub maps. It's free.

We have an implementation on our website using the plugin below (for Wordpress). I imagine it's possible to use similar on other platforms. It works at all the available OS scales and you can display gpx points in various colours and gpx routes.

OS DataHub Maps

Overview This plugin for WordPress allows maps to be inserted into a page or post using the Ordnance Survey Data Hub platform which launched in…

skirridsystems.co.uk

Example of it in use on our club website :

Little Langdale Cottage – Fylde Mountaineering Club

 

[RobinGriffiths]

^ Yes, you can create a dev account on OS and get £2k free premium mapping per month (includes OS Leisure). No credit card needed. We use it with Leaflet across at Buddlepit.

 

[GarDouth]

Thanks Steve, I'll have a look at OS DataHub. One of the main features of use in Google (and Bing) is clustering. Because there are so many data points, it gets very difficult to manage without it. Google is worse than Bing at clustering but most systems I've looked at don't support it at all.

I'm familiar with Google API so it was a quicker solution to get it back on for the moment.

 

[Steve Clark]

Yes, I can see that being an issue in the Dales!

I've not tested it, but the wordpress plugin does at least allow 'layers' so you can group the caves by area/guidebook/colour etc. and switch individual areas on and off by the user. Probably not too obvious for easy use by the casual user though.

Using Layers

If your map includes a lot of overlays or markers, you may want a way of turning groups of them on or off to show…

skirridsystems.co.uk

Great work on the cavemap and CNCC website generally. The style, clarity and navigation is superb.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Thanks Steve, I'll have a look at OS DataHub. One of the main features of use in Google (and Bing) is clustering. Because there are so many data points, it gets very difficult to manage without it. Google is worse than Bing at clustering but most systems I've looked at don't support it at all.

I'm familiar with Google API so it was a quicker solution to get it back on for the moment.

I wrote a clustering algorithm for Google Maps JS for a work thing (didn't realise clustering was an option) and it was a right faff; would not recommend

 

[aricooperdavis]

One downside to DataHub is there's no way to cost cap, so if you do go above the free tier usage you'll be charged.

 

[andrewmcleod]

One downside to DataHub is there's no way to cost cap, so if you do go above the free tier usage you'll be charged.

I think this is the same as Google now.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

The premium plan is actually free if you provide a service free to the public. You don't need a credit card to sign up and you get £1000 free monthly credit.

OS Data Hub

The OS Data Hub can bring your geospatial solutions to life with our APIs, download service, data package creator and other user apps. See a better place with a wealth of free and premium products.

osdatahub.os.uk

OS Data Hub

The OS Data Hub can bring your geospatial solutions to life with our APIs, download service, data package creator and other user apps. See a better place with a wealth of free and premium products.

osdatahub.os.uk

If you don't provide card details, it just stops the data until next month.

Under the Premium Plan, you get up to £1,000 of free premium data transactions each month on a use-it-or-lose-it basis (excluding OS Places API and OS Match & Cleanse API). Once you've used up your free credit, we'll either charge you for the premium data you use or, if you don't have a valid payment card set up, we'll stop you being able to use our premium data until the next month when you'll start another £1,000 of free premium data.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

The OS are suprisingly keen to showcase such usages - proabably as some sort of UK Gov OpenData thing...

e.g.

Faster responses | Blog | OS

The North Wales Cave Rescue Organisation have used Ordnance Survey data to enable faster responses.

www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk