OTISS provides access to the UK Ordnance Survey maps in several ways.

  • OTISS automatically provides access to the online UK Ordnance Survey maps (but only down to a certain zoom level). You can swap between the OS maps, Google Road, Aerial and OpenStreetMaps – both on the OTISS website and when using the OTISS survey apps.
  • You can purchase OS Master Maps and scaled OS maps as digital TIFF files and CAD/DWG/DXF files from a number of online map providers and load them into OTISS. Read More…
  • Access to the full OS Premium Maps is possible when working with Public Sector organisations – see below.
Premium Map via OS Data Hub

UK Public Sector

Most UK Public Sector organisations are entitled to free access to the Ordnance Survey mapping (via the PSGA scheme). In particular, they have free access to the Premium map data provided by the OS Data Hub website.

Therefore, OTISS users who are Public Sector organisations, and OTISS Arb Consultants who are working for Public Sector clients can have access to these OS Premium maps via OTISS and the OS Data Hub website.

Using OS Data Hub

The Public Sector organisation (who is a PSGA member), must:

  1. Create an account on OS Data Hub website – select the Public Sector Plan.
  2. Use the API Dashboard to create a new ‘project’ to provide OTISS access to the OS maps.
  3. Within this project, use the Add API button to include the ‘OS Vector API‘.
  4. All the other APIs can be removed from the project – OTISS does not use them.
  5. Find the section called VTS API Endpoint address, copy the URL and email it to the OTISS Support Staff. The endpoint will look a bit like https://api.os.uk/maps/vector/v1/vts?key=keyvalue
  6. The OTISS Support team will then configure a specified OTISS Estate or Client so that the full Premium zoom levels are available when you use the OS Maps.

In all cases, the API Endpoint configuration will only be loaded for one OTISS Estate or Client (e.g. the County Council) and can only be seen or used by OTISS users working on that Estate/Client. OTISS users will not be able to use these maps for any other surveying.

The public sector organisation has full control over the OTISS access. Via their OS Data Hub login, they can:

  • Monitor usage statistics.
  • Revoke the access when the project is completed, by deleting the ‘project’ or removing the Vector API.

Using Map Tiles

Alternatively (but not nearly as good!), if the Public Sector organisation can provide a set of OS map tiles as TIFF files (e.g. 1:10,000 scale), then these can be loaded onto the OTISS map server and used as the base map. Please contact OTISS Support Team to assist you.