The Bing Maps team at Microsoft released a U.S.-wide vector building dataset in 2018, which includes over 125 million building footprints for all 50 states in GeoJSON format. This dataset is extracted from aerial images using deep learning object classification methods. Large-extent modelling (e.g., urban morphological analysis or ecosystem assessment models) or accuracy assessment with vector layers is highly challenging in practice. Although vector layers provide accurate geometries, their use in large-extent geospatial analysis comes at a high computational cost. We used High Performance Computing (HPC) to develop an algorithm that calculates six summary values for each cell in a raster representation of each U.S. state: (1) total footprint coverage, (2) number of unique buildings intersecting each cell, (3) number of building centroids falling inside each cell, and area of the (4) average, (5) smallest, and (6) largest area of buildings that intersect each cell. These values are represented as raster layers with 30m cell size covering the 48 conterminous states, to better support incorporation of building footprint data into large-extent modelling. This Project is funded by NASA’s Biological Diversity and Ecological Forcasting program; Award # 80NSSC18k0341

Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses. The project being based in Ghana, the current focus is on the continent of Africa.

Image credit: Google AI

GLobAl building MOrphology dataset for URban climate modelling (GLAMOUR) offers the building footprint and height files at the resolution of 100 m in global urban centers.

the BH_100m contains the building height files where each file is named as BH_{lon_start}_{lon_end}_{lat_start}_{lat_end}.tif.

the BF_100m contains the building footprint files where each file is named as BF_{lon_start}_{lon_end}_{lat_start}_{lat_end}.tif.

Here lon_start, lon_end, lat_start, lat_end denote the starting and ending positions of the longitude and latitude of target mapping areas.

To avoid possible confusion, it should be clarified that the 'building footprint' in GLAMOUR represents the 'building surface fraction', i.e., the ratio of building plan area to total plan area.

We also offer the snapshot of source code used for the generation of the GLAMOUR dataset including:

GC_ROI_def.py defines regions of interest (ROI) used in the mapping of the GLAMOUR dataset.

GC_user_download.py retrieves satellite images including Sentinel-1/2, NASADEM and Copernicus DEM from Google Earth Engine and exports them into Google Cloud Storage.

GC_master_pred.py downloads exported data records from Google Cloud Storage and then performs the estimation of building footprint and height using Tensorflow-based models.

GC_postprocess.py performs postprocessing on initial estimations by pixel masking with the World Settlement Footprint layer for 2019 (WSF2019).

GC_postprocess_agg.py aggregates masked patches into larger tiles contained in the GLAMOUR dataset.

Google Open Buildings V3 footprint of the country of Chad. This dataset is released to support humanitarian efforts in Chad. For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq The file contains centroids, building footprints (as WKT), and Plus codes.

Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses.

For each building in this dataset we include the polygon describing its footprint on the ground, a confidence score indicating how sure we are that this is a building, and a Plus Code corresponding to the centre of the building. There is no information about the type of building, its street address, or any details other than its geometry.

More information at Google Open Buildings

OUTDATED. See the current data at https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/hz9b-7nh8 -- Building footprints in Chicago. The data can be viewed on the Chicago Data Portal with a web browser. However, to view or use the files outside of a web browser, you will need to use compression software and special GIS software, such as ESRI ArcGIS (shapefile) or Google Earth (KML or KMZ), is required. Metadata may be viewed and downloaded at http://bit.ly/HZVDIY.

A dataset of building footprints in Morocco, in the area of the 8 September earthquake. Footprint as of May 2023.

Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses.

For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq

The 3D Global Building Footprints (3D-GloBFP) dataset is the first global-scale building height dataset at the individual building footprint level for the year 2020, generated through the integration of multisource Earth Observation (EO) data and the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model. The reliability and accuracy of 3D-GloBFP have been validated across 33 subregions, achieving R² values ranging from 0.66 to 0.96 and root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) between 1.9 m and 14.6 m.

This version supplements building footprints and height attributes for some countries in South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, based on building footprints provided by Microsoft (https://github.com/microsoft/GlobalMLBuildingFootprints), Open Street Map (https://osmbuildings.org/), Google-Microsoft Open Buildings - combined by VIDA (https://source.coop/repositories/vida/google-microsoft-open-buildings), and EUBUCCO (https://eubucco.com/).

The dataset is divided into spatial grid-based tiles, each stored as an individual ShapeFile (.shp) containing estimated building heights (in meters) in attribute tables. See world_grid.shp and readme.txt for details on the spatial grid and file naming.

Data download links are provided in data_links.txt.

Source: https://sites.research.google/gr/open-buildings/temporal/

The Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal Dataset contains annual data spanning eight years (2016-2023) with building presence, fractional building counts, and building heights covering approximately 58 million square kilometers.

This dataset requires some knowledge with using scripts. The ZIP contains .txt files for over 130 countries and territories. The primary purpose of the data is to support comparison of building footprints across multiple years.

Building footprints in Chicago. Metadata may be viewed and downloaded at http://bit.ly/HZVDIY. The data can be viewed on the Chicago Data Portal with a web browser. However, to view or use the files outside of a web browser, you will need to use compression software and special GIS software, such as ESRI ArcGIS (shapefile) or Google Earth (KML or KMZ), is required.

description: Building footprints in Chicago. Metadata may be viewed and downloaded at http://bit.ly/HZVDIY. The data can be viewed on the Chicago Data Portal with a web browser. However, to view or use the files outside of a web browser, you will need to use compression software and special GIS software, such as ESRI ArcGIS (shapefile) or Google Earth (KML or KMZ), is required.; abstract: Building footprints in Chicago. Metadata may be viewed and downloaded at http://bit.ly/HZVDIY. The data can be viewed on the Chicago Data Portal with a web browser. However, to view or use the files outside of a web browser, you will need to use compression software and special GIS software, such as ESRI ArcGIS (shapefile) or Google Earth (KML or KMZ), is required.

A dataset of building footprints in Morocco, in the area of the 8 September earthquake. Footprint as of May 2023.

Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses.

For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq

A buildings footprint dataset covering the region of the Herat province which has been hit with multiple earthquake since October 8th 2023. Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses.

For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq

A dataset of building footprints in Japan, in the area of the January 2024 Noto earthquake. Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses. For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq

A dataset of building footprints of the Reunion Island, in the area of the January 2023 Belal Cyclone. Building footprints are useful for a range of important applications, from population estimation, urban planning and humanitarian response, to environmental and climate science. This large-scale open dataset contains the outlines of buildings derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in order to support these types of uses. For more info visit open buildings FAQ https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/#faq

“Automatically Extracted Buildings” is a raw digital product in vector format created by NRCan. It consists of a single topographical feature class that delineates polygonal building footprints automatically extracted from airborne Lidar data, high-resolution optical imagery or other sources.

Summary:

The files contained herein represent green roof footprints in NYC visible in 2016 high-resolution orthoimagery of NYC (described at https://github.com/CityOfNewYork/nyc-geo-metadata/blob/master/Metadata/Metadata_AerialImagery.md). Previously documented green roofs were aggregated in 2016 from multiple data sources including from NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, greenroofs.com, and greenhomenyc.org. Footprints of the green roof surfaces were manually digitized based on the 2016 imagery, and a sample of other roof types were digitized to create a set of training data for classification of the imagery. A Mahalanobis distance classifier was employed in Google Earth Engine, and results were manually corrected, removing non-green roofs that were classified and adjusting shape/outlines of the classified green roofs to remove significant errors based on visual inspection with imagery across multiple time points. Ultimately, these initial data represent an estimate of where green roofs existed as of the imagery used, in 2016.

These data are associated with an existing GitHub Repository, https://github.com/tnc-ny-science/NYC_GreenRoofMapping, and as needed and appropriate pending future work, versioned updates will be released here.

Terms of Use:

The Nature Conservancy and co-authors of this work shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. Any sale, distribution, loan, or offering for use of these digital data, in whole or in part, is prohibited without the approval of The Nature Conservancy and co-authors. The use of these data to produce other GIS products and services with the intent to sell for a profit is prohibited without the written consent of The Nature Conservancy and co-authors. All parties receiving these data must be informed of these restrictions. Authors of this work shall be acknowledged as data contributors to any reports or other products derived from these data.

Associated Files:

As of this release, the specific files included here are:

• GreenRoofData2016_20180917.geojson is in the human-readable, GeoJSON format, in geographic coordinates (Lat/Long, WGS84; EPSG 4263).
• GreenRoofData2016_20180917.gpkg is in the GeoPackage format, which is an Open Standard readable by most GIS software including Esri products (tested on ArcMap 10.3.1 and multiple versions of QGIS). This dataset is in the New York State Plan Coordinate System (units in feet) for the Long Island Zone, North American Datum 1983, EPSG 2263.
• GreenRoofData2016_20180917_Shapefile.zip is a zipped folder containing a Shapefile and associated files. Please note that some field names were truncated due to limitations of Shapefiles, but columns are in the same order as for other files and in the same order as listed below. This dataset is in the New York State Plan Coordinate System (units in feet) for the Long Island Zone, North American Datum 1983, EPSG 2263.
• GreenRoofData2016_20180917.csv is a comma-separated values file (CSV) with coordinates for centroids for the green roofs stored in the table itself. This allows for easily opening the data in a tool like spreadsheet software (e.g., Microsoft Excel) or a text editor.

Column Information for the datasets:

Some, but not all fields were joined to the green roof footprint data based on building footprint and tax lot data; those datasets are embedded as hyperlinks below.

• fid - Unique identifier
• bin - NYC Building ID Number based on overlap between green roof areas and a building footprint dataset for NYC from August, 2017. (Newer building footprint datasets do not have linkages to the tax lot identifier (bbl), thus this older dataset was used). The most current building footprint dataset should be available at: https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/Building-Footprints/nqwf-w8eh. Associated metadata for fields from that dataset are available at https://github.com/CityOfNewYork/nyc-geo-metadata/blob/master/Metadata/Metadata_BuildingFootprints.md.
• bbl - Boro Block and Lot number as a single string. This field is a tax lot identifier for NYC, which can be tied to the Digital Tax Map (http://gis.nyc.gov/taxmap/map.htm) and PLUTO/MapPLUTO (https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/open-data/dwn-pluto-mappluto.page). Metadata for fields pulled from PLUTO/MapPLUTO can be found in the PLUTO Data Dictionary found on the aforementioned page. All joins to this bbl were based on MapPLUTO version 18v1.
• gr_area - Total area of the footprint of the green roof as per this data layer, in square feet, calculated using the projected coordinate system (EPSG 2263).
• bldg_area - Total area of the footprint of the associated building, in square feet, calculated using the projected coordinate system (EPSG 2263).
• prop_gr - Proportion of the building covered by green roof according to this layer (gr_area/bldg_area).
• cnstrct_yr - Year the building was constructed, pulled from the Building Footprint data.
• doitt_id - An identifier for the building assigned by the NYC Dept. of Information Technology and Telecommunications, pulled from the Building Footprint Data.
• heightroof - Height of the roof of the associated building, pulled from the Building Footprint Data.
• feat_code - Code describing the type of building, pulled from the Building Footprint Data.
• groundelev - Lowest elevation at the building level, pulled from the Building Footprint Data.
• qa - Flag indicating a positive QA/QC check (using multiple types of imagery); all data in this dataset should have 'Good'
• notes - Any notes about the green roof taken during visual inspection of imagery; for example, it was noted if the green roof appeared to be missing in newer imagery, or if there were parts of the roof for which it was unclear whether there was green roof area or potted plants.
• classified - Flag indicating whether the green roof was detected image classification. (1 for yes, 0 for no)
• digitized - Flag indicating whether the green roof was digitized prior to image classification and used as training data. (1 for yes, 0 for no)
• newlyadded - Flag indicating whether the green roof was detected solely by visual inspection after the image classification and added. (1 for yes, 0 for no)
• original_source - Indication of what the original data source was, whether a specific website, agency such as NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation (DPR), or NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Multiple sources are separated by a slash.
• address - Address based on MapPLUTO, joined to the dataset based on bbl.
• borough - Borough abbreviation pulled from MapPLUTO.
• ownertype - Owner type field pulled from MapPLUTO.
• zonedist1 - Zoning District 1 type pulled from MapPLUTO.
• spdist1 - Special District 1 pulled from MapPLUTO.
• bbl_fixed - Flag to indicate whether bbl was manually fixed. Since tax lot data may have changed slightly since the release of the building footprint data used in this work, a small percentage of bbl codes had to be manually updated based on overlay between the green roof footprint and the MapPLUTO data, when no join was feasible based on the bbl code from the building footprint data. (1 for yes, 0 for no)

For GreenRoofData2016_20180917.csv there are two additional columns, representing the coordinates of centroids in geographic coordinates (Lat/Long, WGS84; EPSG 4263):

• xcoord - Longitude in decimal degrees.
• ycoord - Latitude in decimal degrees.

Acknowledgements:

This work was primarily supported through funding from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, awarded to the New York City Program of The Nature Conservancy, with additional support from the New York Community Trust, through New York City Audubon and the Green Roof Researchers Alliance.

The World Settlement Footprint (WSF) 2019 is a 10m resolution binary mask outlining the extent of human settlements globally derived by means of 2019 multitemporal Sentinel-1 (S1) and Sentinel-2 (S2) imagery. Based on the hypothesis that settlements generally show a more stable behavior with respect to most land-cover classes, temporal statistics are calculated for both S1- and S2-based indices. In particular, a comprehensive analysis has been performed by exploiting a number of reference building outlines to identify the most suitable set of temporal features (ultimately including 6 from S1 and 25 from S2). Training points for the settlement and non-settlement class are then generated by thresholding specific features, which varies depending on the 30 climate types of the well-established Köppen Geiger scheme. Next, binary classification based on Random Forest is applied and, finally, a dedicated post-processing is performed where ancillary datasets are employed to further reduce omission and commission errors. Here, the whole classification process has been entirely carried out within the Google Earth Engine platform. To assess the high accuracy and reliability of the WSF2019, two independent crowd-sourcing-based validation exercises have been carried out with the support of Google and Mapswipe, respectively, where overall 1M reference labels have been collected based photointerpretation of very high-resolution optical imagery.

Building footprint and height data were obtained from the latest global 3D building database. The building footprint data originated from Microsoft and Google datasets. Building height information was estimated using an XGBoost machine learning regression model that integrates multi-source remote sensing features. The height estimation model was trained using datasets from ONEGEO Map, Microsoft, Baidu, and EMU Analytics, utilizing 2020 data for the final estimations. Validation of this database demonstrates that the height estimation models perform exceptionally well at a global scale across both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The estimated heights closely match reference height data, especially for landmark buildings, showcasing superior accuracy compared to other global height products. The 3D building data that support this dataset are available in Zenodo DOI:10.5194/essd-16-5357-2024 (Che, Y., Li, X., Liu, X., Wang, Y., Liao, W., Zheng, X., Zhang, X., Xu, X., Shi, Q., Zhu, J., Yuan, H., and Dai, Y. 3D-GloBFP: the first global three-dimensional building footprint dataset. Earth System Science Data)Based on the 3D building database, we verify the locations and boundaries of individual cultural heritage sites and their buffer zones using UNESCO's heritage map platform (https://whc.unesco.org/), and categorize heritage into three groups for data extraction:Broad Scale Sites: For sites encompassing continuous building clusters or portions of cities (e.g., City of Bath), we extract buildings within the designated buffer zones provided by the UNESCO platform.Single Building Sites: For individual monuments or structures (e.g., Tower of London), we precisely extract the building footprints based on their exact coordinates.Multiple Dispersed Buildings: For sites consisting of multiple, non-contiguous structures (e.g., Wooden Churches of Southern Małopolska, Poland), we identify each location using the platform’s data and verify them through Google Maps before extracting the relevant buildings.A few linear heritage sites, such as extensive archaeological routes spanning over a thousand kilometers, are excluded due to the complexities associated with their vast spatial extent and the variability of climate conditions across different segments.The effective data coverage varies across continents: Europe and North America have an effective rate of 82.5%, Asia and the Pacific 68.3%, Latin America and the Caribbean 75.7%, Arab States 76.5%, and Africa 49.2%. This variability reflects differences in data availability. In less developed regions, remote sensing data tends to overlook non-urban heritage sites, and soil and rock structures common in Africa and Southeast Asia are more difficult to detect using satellite remote sensing techniques, leading to lower effective data coverage in these regions.

OUTDATED. See the current data at https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/hz9b-7nh8 -- Building footprints in Chicago. Metadata may be viewed and downloaded at http://bit.ly/HZVDIY. The data can be viewed on the Chicago Data Portal with a web browser. However, to view or use the files outside of a web browser, you will need to use compression software and special GIS software, such as ESRI ArcGIS (shapefile) or Google Earth (KML or KMZ), is required.