In 2009 The GeoInformation Group (TGG) published a new large scale database of London, captured at 1:250 scale and intended to be used at about 1:1,000 scale, called UKMap.
It contained a rich attribute structure which included land use and land cover classifications, addresses and names, a form of the Basic Land and Property Unit (BLPU) and points of interest (POI).
The inital specification and pilot data was created by Seppe Cassettari, who was then CEO of TGG. The UKMap project was recognised by ESRI UK with their Vision Award and in the Cambridge region TGG won Small Business of the Year.
The ETMap project is an extension of the concepts and data model ideas that came out of UKMap.
It includes a greater level of detail, such as roof structures and chimneys, plus more detail on the third dimension. The object referencing system can be linked to information from Land Registry to create BLPU's that are cross referenced to planning applications. The data structure can be used to build 'real world objects' like a property and can be referenced to third party maps like internal house surveys undertaken by estate agents.
This means the database also contains time series information such as a structure's date of build, date of an extension and or when a building was knocked down. This means the database contains multiple, interleaved and time sequenced objects so that historic features can be shown and time series maps created.
The pilot project is based on area of South Cambridgeshire and it is planned to present results at one of the national GIS conferences in 2021.