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Offering maintained national coverage and available in both grid and contour formats, OS Terrain 5 is the new height product from Ordnance Survey depicting the shape of Great Britain’s landscape. Presented as a Digital Terrain Model (DTM), OS Terrain 5 adds the third dimension to analytical applications such as flood risk assessment and infrastructure development.

OS Terrain is the new family name for height products offered by Ordnance Survey. The products are derived from the same data sources as Ordnance Survey’s flagship suite of  OS MasterMap products, ensuring an unparalleled level of consistency and currency between multiple products that cannot be matched by other height products available. OS Terrain 5 will be updated quarterly to ensure that latest data is available to users. With the contour format featuring over 2.3 million contour lines and more than 280,000 spot heights, OS Terrain 5 provides highly-accurate data.

The features offered by this new product will enable a range of practical uses across business and government. The terrain has been carefully modelled in sympathy with geographic locations, from urban to moorland, to provide detail where it is needed most. In addition to this, a higher level of modelling has been consistently applied for features significant to analytical applications. For example, all motorways, major roads and railways as defined by our large-scale data have been modelled, ensuring that the surface is smoothed and associated embankments and cuttings are defined.

Additionally, modelled features also include quarries, coastal areas, tidal boundaries and contained water bodies, delivering effective flood modelling and improved environmental analysis to enable enhanced responses to government directives.

Owain Hale-Heighway, Ordnance Survey Product Manager, said: 'The product was designed to assist in applications that require line-of-site modelling, making it ideal for a variety of business sectors, including wind-farm site location, renewable energy, security, utilities, conservation and development. As the first phase of our longer-term 3D strategy, OS Terrain 5’s interoperability with OS MasterMap provides synchronised data that is ideal for planning and monitoring change to reduce site visits and asset management costs.

 'We’re excited to be launching OS Terrain 5 as our first fully maintained height product offering national coverage. By deriving multiple products from common data sources Ordnance Survey is able to offer a level of fit and currency that can’t be achieved by any other height product available. OS Terrain 5 provides accurate, maintained and consistent analytical data to meet our customers’ needs.”

OS Terrain 5 is the first commercially available product from Ordnance Survey to be supplied exclusively via download. In addition, the product has adopted open source standards including GML and XML. The new product is available in a variety of formats, such as ASCII grid, Esri shapefile and GML 3.2, plus detailed xml metadata for each tile of data.

The release of OS Terrain 5 follows on from the release of the free product, OS Terrain 50 in April this year, included as part of the OS OpenData portfolio. OS Terrain 50, with 50 metre grid and 10 metre contour formats, has received a content refresh plus the introduction of the contour format. The organisation began capturing height data in 2010 as part of the programme to develop 3D product technology. Height data is now captured every year as part of Ordnance Survey’s large-scale capture programme. 

For more information from Ordnance Survey, please contact:

Rob Andrews – Head of Corporate Communications on: 023 8005 5563 or robert.andrews@ordnancesurvey.co.uk