Access and Feeds

Open Data: Microsoft Bing Contributes Building Footprint Data to OpenStreetMap

By Dick Weisinger

OpenStreetMap recently released 125 million US building footprints, contributed by Microsoft,  as part of their open available geo-data set.  The work at Microsoft was done as part of the Bing search engine.  OpenStreetMap is a free and editable map of the world that is released under an open-content license.  Prior to this update, OpenStreetMap had about 30 million building footprints.

The building data was extracted by a team within the Microsoft Bing Maps team.  Using Deep Neural Networks and ResNet34, the team was able to detect and extract the outlines or footprints of building contained in Bing geo-imagery.

In the public sector, building footprints are useful for taxation, planning and public safety.  In the private sector, building footprint maps can be used for planning, visualization, analysis and suitability studies.

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