Buildings

Overview

The Overture Maps buildings theme describes human-made structures with roofs or interior spaces that are permanently or semi-permanently in one place (source: OSM building definition). The theme includes two feature types:

• building: The most basic form of a building feature. The geometry is expected to be the most outer footprint—roofprint if traced from satellite/aerial imagery—of a building. Buildings have a boolean attribute has_parts that describe whether there are any associated building parts.
• building_part: A single part of a building. Building parts may share the same properties as buildings. A building part is associated with a parent building via a building_id.

Data sources

▬ OpenStreetMap | ▬ Esri Community Maps | ▬ Microsoft ML Buildings | ▬ Google Open Buildings

Above is a visualization of San Diego, USA where multiple datasets are conflated. Notice how Esri and OSM buildings appear in big blocks while the Google and Microsoft buildings appear to mix together. This is a product of our conflation process that prioritizes community contributed data first and then "fills in" the rest of the map with the best ML data available.

Currently, the Overture buildings dataset is a combination of the following open building datasets:

Source	Type	Conflation Priority	Count
OpenStreetMap	Community-contributed	1	~620 Million
Esri Community Maps	Community-contributed	2	~15 Million
Google Open Buildings	ML-derived roofprints (>90% precision)	3	~400 Million
Microsoft	ML-derived roofprints	4	~736 Million
Google Open Buildings	ML-derived roofprints (<90% precision)	5	~700 Million

Understanding the Parquet Files

Schema for the GeoParquet files in the buildings theme

building

column	type	description
id	varchar	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	blob	A building's geometry is defined as its footprint or roofprint (if traced from aerial/satellite imagery). MUST be a Polygon as defined by GeoJSON schema.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
subtype	varchar	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
class	varchar	Further delineation of the building's built purpose.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
has_parts	boolean	Flag indicating whether the building has parts.
is_underground	boolean	Whether the entire building or part is completely below ground. This is useful for rendering which typically omits these buildings or styles them differently because they are not visible above ground. This is different than the level column which is used to indicate z-ordering of elements and negative values may be above ground.
height	double	Height of the building or part in meters. The height is the distance from the lowest point to the highest point.
num_floors	integer	Number of above-ground floors of the building or part.
num_floors_underground	integer	Number of below-ground floors of the building or part.
min_height	double	The height of the bottom part of building in meters. Used if a building or part of building starts above the ground level.
min_floor	integer	The "start" floor of a building or building part. Indicates that the building or part is "floating" and its bottom-most floor is above ground level, usually because it is part of a larger building in which some parts do reach ground level.
facade_color	varchar	The color (name or color triplet) of the facade of a building or building part in hexadecimal.
facade_material	varchar	The outer surface material of building facade.
roof_material	varchar	The outermost material of the roof.
roof_shape	varchar	The shape of the roof.
roof_direction	double	Bearing of the roof ridge line.
roof_orientation	varchar	Orientation of the roof shape relative to the footprint shape. Either "along" or "across."
roof_color	varchar	The color (name or color triplet) of the roof of a building or building part in hexadecimal.

building_part

column	type	description
id	varchar	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	blob	A building's geometry is defined as its footprint or roofprint (if traced from aerial/satellite imagery). MUST be a Polygon as defined by GeoJSON schema.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
is_underground	boolean	Whether the entire building or part is completely below ground. This is useful for rendering which typically omits these buildings or styles them differently because they are not visible above ground. This is different than the level column which is used to indicate z-ordering of elements and negative values may be above ground.
height	double	Height of the building or part in meters. The height is the distance from the lowest point to the highest point.
num_floors	integer	Number of above-ground floors of the building or part.
num_floors_underground	integer	Number of below-ground floors of the building or part.
min_height	double	The height of the bottom part of building in meters. Used if a building or part of building starts above the ground level.
min_floor	integer	The "start" floor of a building or building part. Indicates that the building or part is "floating" and its bottom-most floor is above ground level, usually because it is part of a larger building in which some parts do reach ground level.
facade_color	varchar	The color (name or color triplet) of the facade of a building or building part in hexadecimal.
facade_material	varchar	The outer surface material of building facade.
roof_material	varchar	The outermost material of the roof.
roof_shape	varchar	The shape of the roof.
roof_direction	double	Bearing of the roof ridge line.
roof_orientation	varchar	Orientation of the roof shape relative to the footprint shape. Either "along" or "across."
roof_color	varchar	The color (name or color triplet) of the roof of a building or building part in hexadecimal.
building_id	varchar	The building ID to which this part belongs.

Schema reference

• Explore the schema reference for the building feature type.
• Explore the schema reference for the building part feature type.