OS MasterMap - Data can be ordered in a number of different formats depending on your application. This means it can be loaded in different software packages
Downloads of formats .dxf and .dwg are most suited for CAD software packages such as AutoCAD, Bentley Microstation and others.
Downloads of formats .shp, .gpkg and .tab are most suited to GIS software packages such as ESRI ArcGIS Pro & ArcMap, QGIS, MapInfo and others. For more information on loading .gpkg formats visit our help page on How to load a GeoPackage
The download of OS MasterMap - Data provides four main groupings of data
- points - these are point features that represent single entites in the real world such as lampposts
- lines - these are linear features that represent the linear boundaries of feautres such as building outlines and other linear features such as paths.
- area - these are polygon features that represent area based features such as buildings and surfaces.
- anno - short for annotation. These will be loaded into your system as points and represent the location of annotations for building numbers and street names. To display as labels you will need to go into the properties of the data layer and display the Text field as labels
Styling the Data
Some of the data formats do not come with any pre-defined styling, so will load into your software of choice with a standard styling (see image below)
Ordnance Survey have created a number of styling files for different software packages to help understand the data and what it represents.
The .shp format and .gpkg formats are not supplied with any styling and will work seamlessly with the stylesheets provided by Ordnance Survey. The .tab, .dwg and .dxf files come with styling included so the following guidance is not required. The instructions below give details how to style the .shp or .gpkg files in ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap and QGIS. If you require guidance for other software packages please get in touch.
Styling in ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap
To style the OS MasterMap data you will need to download the associated LYR file stylesheets.
To access the stylesheets and the associated documentation, please follow this link to the Ordnance Survey GitHub page. The README.md provides a link to their “Getting Started Guide” which provides the comprehensive documentation on their styling methodology.
In terms of getting the LYR file stylesheets working with your MasterMap data, Groundsure has already created the required fields that the LYR files require to apply the styling - “style_code” and “style_description”. Therefore, you can navigate straight to 8.2 How to use the esri layer (lyr) files on page 19 to begin styling your MasterMap data in ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap.
Styling for GeoPackage
To style the OS MasterMap data you will need to download the associtaed QML stylesheets.
To access the stylesheets and the associated documentation, please follow this link to the Ordnance Survey GitHub page. The README.md provides a link to their “Getting Started Guide” which provides the comprehensive documentation on their styling methodology.
In terms of getting the QML stylesheets working with your MasterMap data, Groundsure has already created the required fields that the QML files require to apply the styling - “style_code” and “style_description”. Therefore, you can navigate straight to 8.3 How to use the QGIS QML files on page 22 to begin styling your MasterMap data in QGIS.