science

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland rather than just read about it. In short: Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) is the official mapping agency of Northern Ireland. The agency ceased to exist separately on 1 April 2008 when it became part of Land and Property Services, an executive agency of the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel, along with the Rate Collection Agency, the Valuation and Lands Agency, and the Land & Property Services.

Key takeaways

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) is the official mapping agency of Northern Ireland. The agency ceased to exist separately on 1 April 2008 when it became part of Land and Property Services, an executive agency of the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel, along with the Rate Collection Agency, the Valuation and Lands Agency, and the Land & Property Services.

Description It was an Executive Agency within the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in the Northern Ireland Executive. The Ordnance Surveys of Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland share a common heritage: the British Ordnance Survey (OS) ceased to map Ireland just before the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (the Partition of Ireland having already taken place in May 1921 with the creation of Northern Ireland). The new Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) officially came into existence on 1 January 1922, while the new Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) came into being slightly later, on 1 April 1922.

Products The vast majority of OSNI's income came from the licensing of its digital mapping data, which, because of the long history of mapping in Ireland (see Ordnance Survey) is amongst the most detailed and comprehensive in the world. Digital products range from the Large Scale (1:1250 urban and 1:2500 rural) vector database, 1:10,000 raster mapping derived automatically from the L/S vector, 1:50,000 and 1:250,00 vectors, 1;10,000 orthophotography, 1:25,000 leisure maps, the 1:50,000 raster series, 1:250,000 Ireland North raster, street maps of the main conurbations, as well as paper derivatives of all the raster products. In 2005 OSNI began, with the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), to digitise the complete set of historical maps dating back to the 1830s. (The earliest comprehensive and accurately surveyed large scale mapping in the world). These are being georectified to match modern mapping projections and are being annotated with points of interest from PRONI's archives. OSNI also maintained the UK's only common address database, Pointer, which cross matches and validates the address data from the Royal Mail, Valuation and Lands Agency, OSNI and local authorities, and georeferences each address, as well as giving it a unique identifier. This allows spatial interrogation by customers of the >800,000 addresses in NI using computerised Geographic Information Systems (GIS) combined with digital mapping and the customer's own data. Supporting the interconnectivity of Geographical Information (GI) for the benefit of the Northern Ireland economy, society and administration was OSNI's primary purpose. In support of this, OSNI also provides the secretariat for Mosaic, the GI strategy for Northern Ireland, which is the first such strategy to be implemented in the UK. In support of Mosaic, OSNI is currently (2006) building a GeoHub for the region, which will be able to host and connect to spatial data from multiple sources, permit a metadata (data about the data) search and, using thin client browser applications, via the Internet, permit multiple data layers to be interrogated, connected, analysed, licensed, downloaded, uploaded and updated. Starting in Spring 2006, OSNI's own full product range became available via a map-enabled e-commerce website. OSNI's surveying technology is based on both photogrammetry and ground survey using total station electronic theodolites in combination with pen (tablet) computers, so that the data is updated directly into the digital format. The photogrammetry (using flight-derived stereo imagery at high resolution) is also used to maintain height models of the topography (Digital Terrain Model or DTM). Computer software permits the draping of aerial photography and/or mapping over such models for the purposes of fly-through or drive-through 3D visualisations. OSNI's Geodesy section maintains the positional reference system to millimetre precision and OSNI's ground stations allow high accuracy use of GPS.

References

See also Irish grid reference system, the old coordinate system for Ireland. Irish Transverse Mercator, the new coordinate system. Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey Ireland List of Government departments and agencies in Northern Ireland

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland

In research: Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Geography of Northern Ireland, National mapping agencies, Northern Ireland Executive, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland in simple terms?

Why does Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.