Simple OS MasterMap GML/GZ loader

Author: Matt Walker, Astun Technology Ltd.

Contact: support [at] astuntechnology.com

A very simple OS MasterMap loader written in Python that makes use of OGR 1.8. Source data can be in GML or GZip (.gz) format and can be output to any of the formats supported by OGR.

Dependencies

• OGR 1.8

  • OGR is part of the GDAL suit of tools for translating and manipulation geospatial data.
  • Windows users can use OSGeo4W (choose Advanced install and select GDAL under the Commandline_Utilities section). You can then run the loader using the OSGeo4W Shell which will have OGR available.
  • Linux users see GDAL Downloads.

• Python 2.5

  • Python 2.5 or above (not 3.x) is required. Most modern Linux operating systems will already have 2.5 or above. Windows users can download Python from the Python Downloads page.

Usage

First configure the loader by editing 'osmmloader.config' specifying:

Basic configuration

• 'src_dir'
  • The directory containing your source OS MasterMap .gml or .gz files. All .gml / .gz files in the specified directory and it's decendents will be loaded.
• 'tmp_dir'
  • The directory used to store temporary working files during loading.
• 'ogr_cmd'
  • The ogr2ogr command that will be used to load the data. Here you can specify the destination format and any associated settings (for example database connection details if you are writing to PostGIS).

Advanced configuration

• 'prep_cmd'
  • The command used to prepare the source data so it is suitable for loading with OGR (does nor normally need changing).
• 'gfs_file'
  • Optional OGR .gfs file used to define the feature attributes and geometry type of the feautes read from the GML.

Then run from the commandline:

'python osmmloader.py osmmloader.config'

Additional arguments can be passed to override the values in the config file (usefull when running more than one instance of the loader) for example to specify a different source directory ('src_dir'):

'python osmmloader.py config_file src_dir=./data/tq'