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A national dataset of rasterized building footprints for the U.S.

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

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 30 m cell size covering the 48 conterminous states, to better support incorporation of building footprint data into large-extent modelling. We also identify errors in the original building dataset where buildings are systematically over- or undercounted, providing further guidance for their use in geospatial analysis. This Project is funded by NASA’s Biological Diversity and Ecological Forcasting program; Award # 80NSSC18k0341

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/a09e825186897532091ffafc0dc76da9
Identifier USGS:5e432002e4b0edb47be84652
Data Last Modified 20220828
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 8799d0d9-746f-449b-ab5c-5e8ae0580fc6
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -124.76,24.52,-66.94,49.38
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 97bd95846542faab31d235b8ea437aba7de10a10611cbdeabdb8fdf2ba850ae9
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -124.76, 24.52, -124.76, 49.38, -66.94, 49.38, -66.94, 24.52, -124.76, 24.52}

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