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Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

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Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#41

Post by slededit »

et2o wrote: post #36
deklerk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example Los Angeles County, twice as large as Finland. Uhh. You're off by two orders of magnitude. Los Angeles county is 4751 sq mi [1]. Finland is 130,666 sq mi [2]. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_Californ... 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland

He or she meant by population I would assume. Approximately 5 vs. 10 million.

Population isn't very relevant when we're speaking specifically of things that relate to land area like topological maps.

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#42

Post by rebuilder »

reaperducer wrote: post #31
tomarr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this size argument arrive from because it comes up consistently on USA v elsewhere arguments? 95th percentile densities are no more than europe. The population of USA is more than 30x Finland and we are talking about laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent)

laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent) Why would the EPA laser scan buildings? The EPA handles clean air and water. The only entities that have any business laser scanning any building are the county tax assessor and the insurance companies.

Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey?

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#43

Post by herewulf »

rebuilder wrote: post #42
reaperducer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent) Why would the EPA laser scan buildings? The EPA handles clean air and water. The only entities that have any business laser scanning any building are the county tax assessor and the insurance companies.

Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey?

United States Geological Survey (USGS), Department of the Interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Geological_Surve...

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#44

Post by adventist »

et2o wrote: post #36
deklerk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example Los Angeles County, twice as large as Finland. Uhh. You're off by two orders of magnitude. Los Angeles county is 4751 sq mi [1]. Finland is 130,666 sq mi [2]. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_Californ... 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland

He or she meant by population I would assume. Approximately 5 vs. 10 million.

Exactly. I would assume that the higher the population, the more buildings present. Just because you have a lot of land doesn't mean you have a lot of buildings.

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#46

Post by jmspring »

jakobegger wrote: post #45

When I read the part about downloading the dataset from Github, my first reaction was "Can't Microsoft afford to host downloads themselves?", and then I realized they own Github now...

Seriously, the two aren’t related. Microsoft has had public projects on Github for a couple of years now with more important projects being made public regularly.

Downvoted because the cynicism and not paying attention.

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#47

Post by TekMol »

I wonder if I ever heard about Microsoft Maps before. What is the state of it? Who uses it?

So I tried www.bing.com/maps. The first thing that surprises me is that it tries to set 5 cookies from google.com and one from www.google.com

What is the reason for Microsoft to allow Google to track everybody who uses their maps?

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#48

Post by aaronbrethorst »

StudentStuff wrote: post #10
ISL wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge difference between tracking for building permits and opening an API to the world. As an example -- in Seattle, sewer lines are still denoted with "sewer cards", digital images of pencil drawings on hundred-year-old paper. It is sufficient for sewer records, but utterly insufficient for OSM.

In Washington State, nearly all of the counties provide daily or weekly data exports for lot lines, streets and more. OSM regularly imports this data, but if you go much outside Seattle and are using Google Maps, prepare for a rubbish experience, as Google hasn't bothered to source the data directly from the counties (thus there are many missing and incorrectly drawn roads in the San Juans) and they're relying on a 3…

This explains why I’ve had such a miserable experience navigating the peninsula with Google turn by turn directions. Thank you for the context.

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#49

Post by objectivetruth »

slededit wrote: post #41
et2o wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He or she meant by population I would assume. Approximately 5 vs. 10 million.

Population isn't very relevant when we're speaking specifically of things that relate to land area like topological maps.

But we are talking about building footprints which DO directly correlate to population, not overall area of an entity. So it's the most relevant factor.

Re: Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

#50

Post by objectivetruth »

rebuilder wrote: post #42
reaperducer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent) Why would the EPA laser scan buildings? The EPA handles clean air and water. The only entities that have any business laser scanning any building are the county tax assessor and the insurance companies.

Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey?

Not for buildings - thanks to federalism, that is the responsibility of the state, county, or local government entity.

(But USGS does a great job for other things.)

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