What's New

12 May 2010: Updated version of CGA used in place-name zoom

The version of the CGA used in the "Zoom to Place-name" facility has been updated.

25 January 2010: Facility for web managers

Code for use by registered users of the ADD allowing them to embed an interactive map of Antarctica in a web-page is provided on the "Information for Web managers" page

19 January 2010: Data from Spanish 1993 map of Deception Island added

Data from the map Deception Island (1994), 1;25,000, Madrid, Servicio Geográfico del Ejército has been added from a digital file provided by Spain. These data are extremely detailed.

9 December 2009: BEDMAP sub-ice topography added to browser

Contours of the bedrock beneath the ice of Antarctica derived from the BEDMAP dataset have been incorporated in the map browser. This dataset also provides bathymetry to 60° S

26 November 2009: Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Programme (RAMP) Synthetic Aperture Radar Mosaic added to browser

The Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Programme (RAMP) Synthetic Aperture Radar Mosaic is now available as a background layer in the map browser. Note that this mosaic is NOT hosted on the ADD servers, but is served by the National Snow and Ice Data Center

12 November 2009: Modis Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) added to browser

The Modis Mosaic of Antarctica is now available as a background layer in the map browser. Note that this mosaic is NOT hosted on the ADD servers, but is served by the National Snow and Ice Data Center

20 January 2008: Changes to Map Browser

The map browser has been replaced using software based on the OpenLayers package. This provides much more responsive map browsing, and new facilites. As part of this upgrade, additional layers from the ADD have been incorporated into the browser, and the LIMA mosaic is now available as a background layer. Note that this mosaic is NOT hosted on the ADD servers.

7 April 2008: Changes to Commercial Licensing system

The Commercial Licensing system now provides details to allow license fees to be paid by cheque or by telephone using a credit card. Unfortunately it is not yet possible to provide an on-line payment option.

19 March 2008: SVG download now correct

An upgrade of the Geoserver software now provides correct SVG that can be viewed in Firefox and other SVG capable browsers.

17 March 2008: New Hypsometric data layer

A new layer providing hypsometric shading has been made available through the map browser. This is experimental and at a coarse resolution (1km). It can be seen by using the "Layers" button and switching off the coastline layer and switching on the hypsometric shading layer.

8 February 2008: Placenames for Heard and Macquarie Islands incorporated in name search

The placenames from the Australian Gazetteer have been incorporated in the database underlying the "Zoom to name" function. Because of outlying islands exaggerating its extent, Macquarie Island does not appear on first zooming to it; simply zoom in on the centre of the extent.

8 February 2008: Link to old documentation provided

A link to the PDF files containing the most recent version of the ADD manual has been provided. This, while not current in some respects, is the most comprehensive description of the ADD available at present.

7 February 2008: Improved Zoom to Placename

The facility to zoom to a placename has been improved, so it will now zoom to the correct approximate extent of the selected name.

22 January 2008: Password recovery facility

A facility has been added to allow user's passwords to be recovered on entry of a registered email address.

22 January 2008: New data for Australian Sub-Antarctic Islands

Data for Heard and Macquarie Islands have been incorporated, courtesy of Australian Antarctic Division. The data are coastline and contours only. Arc Export format (E00) data are not yet available; all other download formats are available. Placenames will be incorporated in the name finder database in the near future.

20 December 2007: Generalized data for South Georgia

Generalized data for South Georgia are now in place allowing the map browser to show South Georgia at all scales.

11 December 2007: Updated scale 1 Contour data

Minor changes to scale1 contour data

7 December 2007: Updated scale 1 Contour data

The scale 1 contour data have now been updated. ARC/INFO Export data (.e00 files) for all scale 1 coverages are also now available; a problem with some of the processing caused a delay in the creation of these files for the coast and rock outcrop layers.

Note that only coast, rock outcrop and contour layers have been updated; other layers are unchanged.

5 December 2007: Updated Scale 1 Data

The Scale 1 coast and rock outcrop layers have been updated in line with the latest version of the ADD. Contour data have not yet been updated; in some areas (Charcot Island, Latady Island and the south side of the Ronne Entrance) the contour data do not match the new coastline. This will be amended shortly.

21 November 2007: Access to old version of ADD removed

Access to the old version of the ADD was removed on 21 November 2007. Users who wish to complete downloads may go to the old site from here

06 November 2007: Right click "feature" removed

A "feature" of the web map browser that disabled the right click context menu on the map panel has been changed. Right-clicking on the map will now give access to the usual context menu for images. However, note that the map is NOT a single image, but is a stack of images using transparent overlays.

24 October 2007: Zoom to Placename

A new, experimental facility that allows users to zoom the map browser to a specified name from the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica has been implemented. No names are displayed on the map as yet, and the determination of scale of display is crude. Note that in general, the present system works best for small features and tends to zoom in too far on larger ones.

03 October 2007: Welcome to the new web-site

The Antarctic Digital Database version 5 is now live. I hope you will bear with any teething troubles; the technology behind the site has been completely changed, and many new options are now available to users.

New Content

• Version 5 of the ADD incorporates considerable new data in the Antarctic Peninsula. Most of this data relates to the USGS Coastal change project, which has resulted in new coastlines for all the Antarctic Peninsula and the major offshore islands. Further work in-house has provided amended coastlines for the west coast of Alexander Island and the Ronne Entrance as far west as Eltanin Bay. All these coastlines are based on modern satellite images, and the expected horizontal error is in the region of 100m. In several places, new rock outcrop data have been acquired.
• Detailed data for Ryder Bay, Adelaide Island and Signy Island, South Orkney Islands have been incorporated from new mapping carried out by British Antarctic Survey.
• The rock outcrop for the Whitmore Mountains has been added; this was omitted from previous versions of the ADD.
• Data for South Georgia is available now; data for Heard and Macquarie Islands has been made available and will be incorporated in the immediate future.
• New mapping for the region of Anvers Island to the Argentine Islands will also be incorporated shortly when the primary mapping by BAS is complete.
• The historic coastline data from the USGS coastal change project for the Antarctic Peninsula has been incorporated as a new data layer.

New web-site for ADD

A completely revised web site for the ADD has been created, providing many new facilities, in particular:

1. A Web map browser, providing access to all levels of details of the ADD. At present only a restricted set of data from the ADD are available; this may change with time.
2. A much expanded range of formats in which data can be downloaded, including:
1. GML
2. Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)
3. ESRI "Generate" Format
4. GoogleEarth KML
5. Image file formats (GIF, JPG and PNG)
6. ESRI Shape-files (not yet available because of a bug in third party software)
7. Simple Vector Graphic format (SVG)
8. WKT Format
9. ESRI Export format (as previously)
3. Streamlined user registration.
4. Online pricing information for commercial use; this will develop into online ordering for commercial use.
5. Revised license conditions.

Work to align with SCAR Feature Catalogue

A long-standing aim of the ADD has been to align the pre-existing data structure with the SCAR Feature Catalogue (FC). For many reasons, this has taken longer than anticipated, and is still not complete. Difficulties that have had to be addressed include semantic differences between the ADD and the Feature Catalogue, and a completely different set of assumptions concerning data organization. However, an interim position is now available, which exposes the data of the ADD via web services as feature types defined by the Feature Catalogue. In some cases, the correspondence between ADD features and Feature Catalogue Features is tentative; for example, the ADD uses “land” in the sense “not sea, ice shelf, ice rumple or ice tongue”, whereas the Feature Catalogue relates the term to its use in place names (e.g. Wilkes Land). This type of issue has been raised with the maintainers of the Feature Catalogue.

Another issue is that in some cases the ADD carries more detail than is required by the Feature Catalogue, and in some cases attributes have been used that, although defined in the Feature Catalogue, are not required by the feature type in question. In particular, the ADD preserves information about both sides of boundary feature types, so the “surface” attribute is required in all these cases to encode the additional information that (for example) a rock boundary may separate rock from sea, ice shelf, ice tongue, moraine, outwash or lakes.

Feature Catalogue compatible views of the ADD are exposed via the Web Feature Server using the namespaces “addraw”, “add_scale1” etc. The names of the features are as given in the Feature Catalogue, so (for example) the feature addraw:outcrop exposes the ADD data from the ADD “Rock” layer in a form compatible with the FC.

WFS/WMS services

A major extension to the capabilities of the ADD has been the provision of a Web Feature Service (WFS) and a Web Map Service (WMS). Both the Web Map service and the Web Feature service are fully compliant with OGC WMS 1.1.1 and OGC WFS 1.0; the software used (Geoserver) is the OGC reference implementation for the WFS 1.0 specification. Note, however, that the server provides Antarctic projections not yet widely supported in commercial software although they are in the latest version of the EPSG projection code database, the de-facto repository of “well-known” map projections widely used by the GIS industry.

To support the provision of useful WFS and WMS services, a wide range of EPSG codes for Antarctic projections were submitted to and accepted by the EPSG. These are taken from SCAR guidelines, and extended with the suite of Lambert Conformal Conic Projections defined by Sievers, J. and H. Bennat (1989). “Reference systems of maps and geographic information systems of Antarctica.” Antarctic Science 1(4): 351-362. This provides the usual SCAR polar Stereographic projection with a standard parallel at 71°S (EPSG:3031) and a suite of projections suitable for each IMW map tile for Antarctica (EPSG:3204 – EPSG:3292).

The URLs of the services are:

• WFS: http://www.add.scar.org:8080/geoserver/wfs
• WMS: http://www.add.scar.org:8080/geoserver/wms

The Antarctic Digital Database is copyright © the Scientific Committtee on Antarctic Research 1993 - 2006.

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