OS 6 inch Historical Maps died

[ds47uk]

Hi
The OS Historical Maps have gone off-line ... this time the Six Inch 1888-1913. Fortunately I have stored most of the maps in which I am interested (mainly deceased railway lines), but trying to go to new areas I get an error (on tablet and on phone)

bad code 301 - Moved permanently

The source of the maps on the OS website still seems to be working ok. Any ideas what's gone wrong?

Also ... if a new AQX file is needed will the stored maps still work ok?

thank you
David

[Psyberia-Support]

Hi David,
As explained here, NLS maps the service has moved in March 2022 to a privately ran service.
Commercial usage is charged, so unfortunately I can not maintain those maps for free in the app.
It's a shame to see how they make map data difficult to access from the public in the UK, I give up.
You may be able to get your own access key for free, with a fair use limit, and use the new private service, more information and pricing available here: https://www.maptiler.com/nls/

[ds47uk]

Thanks for the info. At the moment 25 inch work but ever ... so ... slowly!

[RambleJoy]

The UK is in trouble in so many ways...

MapTiler only gives you 100,000 requests a month for free, which isn't much (might take a while to re-build a cache,) but if you want to follow François's suggestion, David, something like this should work in an AQX file to restore individual service:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<aqx version="9">

	<name>GB Historical Maps via MapTiler</name>
	<description>Old Ordnance Survey Editions from NLS Archives</description>	
	
	<source id="OSNLSMT1888” type="topo">
		<name>OS 6-Inch 1888-1913</name>
		<region>EURO</region>
		<copyright>National Library of Scotland</copyright>
			<zoom-levels z=“1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17”>
			<update-delay>None</update-delay>
			<servers>
				<server><![CDATA[https://api.maptiler.com/tiles/uk-osgb10k1888/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpg?key=_YOUR_KEY_HERE]]></server>
				<!--The above free personal API key, permitting 100,000 requests per month, needs to be obtained from https://cloud.maptiler.com/auth/widget -->
			</servers>
			</zoom-levels>
	</source>

</aqx>

Just add other sources as required. (And, potentially, additional API keys...)

The following isn't helpful for use with AQ, unfortunately, since there's intentionally no way to download the routes, but, if you're not already aware of it, in a web browser RAIL MAP online shows the historic railway lines (and is no longer able to use the NLS historic basemaps for context either ).

As you say, you can still get the overlay at NLS in a browser too, but they're actually fetching it from MapTiler themselves now!

[Psyberia-Support]

By the way, are those historical maps still copyrighted?
If not, I can host them on my own servers to make sure they remain available...

[RambleJoy]

First of all, apologies and alert:
a couple of curly quotes crept into the above, so AQ will choke on it. They need to be replaced with straight ascii ones.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<aqx version="9">

	<name>GB Historical Maps via MapTiler</name>
	<description>Old Ordnance Survey Editions from NLS Archives</description>	
	
	<source id="OSNLSMT1888" type="topo">
		<name>OS 6-Inch 1888-1913</name>
		<region>EURO</region>
		<copyright>National Library of Scotland</copyright>
			<zoom-levels z="1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17">
			<update-delay>None</update-delay>
			<servers>
				<server><![CDATA[https://api.maptiler.com/tiles/uk-osgb10k1888/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpg?key=_YOUR_KEY_HERE]]></server>
				<!--The above free personal API key, permitting 100,000 requests per month, needs to be obtained from https://cloud.maptiler.com/auth/widget -->
			</servers>
			</zoom-levels>
	</source>

</aqx>

All these APIs are great, but it is a pain when they try to track usage by enforcing individual keys because it renders AQ's powerful features a niche product rather than easily consumer-accessible.

By the way, are those historical maps still copyrighted?
If not, I can host them on my own servers to make sure they remain available...

So hosting the maps sounds like a great idea

They are, indeed, out of copyright, and MapTiler's terms of access appear to conflict with the Creative Commons distribution & re-use licence from NLS for their georeferenced scans, so the latter should apply...

[ds47uk]

From the OS website....
"
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, ‘Crown’ copyright exists for a period of 50 years from the end of the year in which the work was first published. This means that any OS mapping which was created prior to 1 April 2015 will be protected by Crown copyright for a period of 50 years from its first publication. Accordingly, if an OS map was first published over 50 years ago it can be copied or otherwise used without a licence from OS.
"
I guess this means that the maps are out of copyright. In fact, have a look at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ - they store old OS road maps once they are out of copyright - so they currently are loading one-inch maps from the 1970's. If you could somehow host these 6" historical maps it would be EXTREMELY useful.

Thanks also to RambleJoy for info.

[RambleJoy]

It looks like NLS will supply digital map files directly: it's just a matter of making a custom request (email maps@nls.uk ) and paying a data preparation fee.

https://maps.nls.uk/enquiries

Apples and oranges, I realise, but in case it's at all helpful to know as a ballpark, my on-device AQ cache of png tiles combining modern OS MiniScale, 1:250K, 1:50K & 1:25K maps for the whole of Great Britain to cover zoom levels 3-15 comes in at 92.86GB -- so something similar for the various historic maps available via MapTiler would amount to a lot of API transaction requests and not be a viable way to get the data transferred, given the limits they impose.