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Dear All, Graham asks if EH is planning to make the Heritage List for England available as a WMS/WFS which is certainly part of our Corporate GIS strategy for the next year or so. It is envisaged that these would be available as links from our Data Downloads page, enabling access to 24-hour old data. We will continue to make the shapefiles available as well through the Download service, and both the shapefiles and WMS/WFS will have associated published discovery level metadata to GEMINI 2/ INSPIRE specifications (which will enable users to filter for newly added listings etc.) Best wishes, Cat ________________________________ From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Crispin Flower Sent: 25 August 2010 16:03 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Statement on Spatial Depictions of Heritage Assets - message on behalf of English Heritage Heritage Protection Department A couple of small points here: 1. The concept of needing to keep all records on one "layer" and therefore forcing them all to share the same geometry type (if indeed this is behind the decision) is arguably short-sighted, and tied to the particular GIS technology stack (ESRI) that EH happens to use. In some existing GIS technology no such constraint exists, and as we move more towards spatially-enabled databases and away from proprietary GIS formats, this will become less relevant. It would be shame if an important dataset is made less useful for this reason alone. 2. Graham asks a good question about WMS/WFS (and note that the SMs are already available within the SHINE WMS), however we should not consider this the whole solution. Yes, this would be helpful sometimes, to cross-check. However services like this will not (for a long time) be usable in automated constraint-checking systems etc, and it will usually be necessary to hold a local copy, properly indexed into (and managed by) the HER. Furthermore, it is also extremely important to know when designations change, and a WMS/WFS cannot tell you this. In theory EH could run web services that respond to requests for lists of changes, but I've not heard this proposed, and I cannot see this happening any time soon (though it would be the correct technical solution IMHO). In the meantime, the notification procedures will remain crucial, and each will require some updating at the receiving end. This should not necessarily be criticized as double-handling - it is important part of making sure designation changes take effect in policy and practice. Cheers Crispin From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graham Tait Sent: 24 August 2010 16:31 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Statement on Spatial Depictions of Heritage Assets - message on behalf of English Heritage Heritage Protection Department I have read this thread on the proposed Unified Designation System with some interest. As Chris points out, English Heritage have a practical reason to integrate all the assets into one layer, therefore combining separate datasets of points, polygons and lines into one dataset. I understand that polygons of Listed Buildings do not have any statutory validity. The mapping component of the database needs to clearly indicate which building is listed. In the last few years, English Heritage have been creating polygons (rather than points) of Listed Buildings for records that have been updated recently. These polygons have been very useful for identifying individual Listed Buildings. While these don't indicate the curtilage, they do clearly indicate each Listed Building. This needs to be made clear in the metadata provided. It seems to me that by converting all of the Listed Building entries to 5m x 5m polygons is rather 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. Another approach might be to keep the polygons of the buildings that have already been captured, and convert only the points into 5m x 5m polygons? It would also be useful to know if English Heritage are planning to make the Unified Designation System mapping available as a Web Map Service (WMS) or a Web Feature Service (WFS)? This would stop the double-handling of data as it is updated by English Heritage, and then updated again by each local authority and other interest groups. At the moment, we have to download data from http://services.english-heritage.org.uk/NMRDataDownload/, and keep checking this and regularly downloading it to ensure our data is up-to-date. Making this available as a WMS or WFS would mean that the most accurate and up-to-date data could be shown directly on any GIS throughout the country. As Crispin mentions, it would be useful to know the thought processes behind the decision for the Unified Designation System, and whether there is any room for discussion or change. best regards, Graham -- Graham Tait Archaeologist Historic Environment Service Devon County Council Matford Offices County Hall Topsham Road Exeter EX2 4QW Telephone: 01392 382214 Email: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.devon.gov.uk/historicenvironment Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email -----Original Message----- From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of HOWARD, Bruce Sent: 20 August 2010 16:40 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [HERFORUM] Statement on Spatial Depictions of Heritage Assets - message on behalf of English Heritage Heritage Protection Department Dear List member, Please see below a statement issued on behalf of English Heritage's Heritage Protection Department: "Statement on Spatial Depictions of Heritage Assets English Heritage is in the process of undertaking a programme of work designed to reform the way in which the currently separate designation systems of Listing, Scheduling, Protected Wrecks and the two Registers of Parks and Gardens and Battlefields are created, managed and stored. A new database is being created called the Unified Designation System (UDS), which will not only support the new unified business process but it will also contain all the individual designation records and make these available via the online Heritage List for England. Each record will contain both a textual description together with a mapped indication of the location of the asset. The UDS and the Heritage List for England will also contain World Heritage Site records. The UDS is planned to go live in early 2011. Currently the various types of designation are spatially depicted by a mixture of points, polygons and multi-part polygons. Each is stored as a separate dataset in the current Geographical Information System (GIS). To ease software development and future maintenance the decision has been taken to move all these depictions to a single dataset in the new system. To enable this to happen it has been agreed to convert all Listed Building entries currently depicted as points into tiny polygons of size 5m x 5m. There are, however, a number of Listed Buildings which are already depicted as larger-scale polygons, some with multiple parts. It is not possible to migrate these across to the new system as they do not have any statutory validity and they might also be mistakenly taken to indicate curtilage. It has therefore been decided that these depictions will also be converted into tiny polygons. The polygons with multiple parts will be gradually converted over the coming months, with the remaining larger-scale polygons and the points converted all together when the new system goes live. For Scheduled Monuments, Protected Wrecks, Registered Battlefields and Registered Parks and Gardens the polygons will remain as the spatial definition of the designated area. The different asset types will continue to be available to all users as separate datasets via the NMR Data Download Area." Regards Bruce *********************************************************************************** Bruce Howard Heritage Information Partnerships Supervisor (HER Liaison) English Heritage National Monuments Record Kemble Drive Swindon SN2 2GZ Tel: 01793 41 4880 Fax: 01793 414444 e-mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> mobile: 07979 241 770 Online guidance for Historic Environment Records: www.ifp-plus.info<http://www.ifp-plus.info> HER Forum email list owner: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/archives/herforum.html http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/using/quickuser.htm P Please consider the environment - do you really need to print this email?