97% of Buildings On Earth 3D-Mapped (nature.com)
(Friday December 12, 2025 @11:44AM (BeauHD)
from the building-polygons dept.)
Longtime Slashdot reader [1]Gilmoure shares a report from Nature:
> Scientists have produced the [2]most detailed 3D map of almost all buildings in the world . The map, called [3]GlobalBuildingAtlas , combines satellite imagery and machine learning to generate 3D models for 97% of buildings on Earth. The dataset, [4]published in the open-access journal Earth System Science Data on December 1, covers 2.75 billion buildings, each mapped with footprints and heights at a spatial resolution of 3 meters by 3 meters. The 3D map opens new possibilities for disaster risk assessment, climate modeling and urban planning, according to study co-author Xiaoxiang Zhu, an Earth observation data scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
"Imagine a video game with the world's buildings already mapped in basic spatial dimensions!" writes Gilmoure.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Gilmoure
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04036-x
[3] https://github.com/zhu-xlab/GlobalBuildingAtlas
[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04036-x?error=cookies_not_supported&code=43453a51-e3d8-46c4-97f6-25784eab73a6#ref-CR1
> Scientists have produced the [2]most detailed 3D map of almost all buildings in the world . The map, called [3]GlobalBuildingAtlas , combines satellite imagery and machine learning to generate 3D models for 97% of buildings on Earth. The dataset, [4]published in the open-access journal Earth System Science Data on December 1, covers 2.75 billion buildings, each mapped with footprints and heights at a spatial resolution of 3 meters by 3 meters. The 3D map opens new possibilities for disaster risk assessment, climate modeling and urban planning, according to study co-author Xiaoxiang Zhu, an Earth observation data scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
"Imagine a video game with the world's buildings already mapped in basic spatial dimensions!" writes Gilmoure.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Gilmoure
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04036-x
[3] https://github.com/zhu-xlab/GlobalBuildingAtlas
[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04036-x?error=cookies_not_supported&code=43453a51-e3d8-46c4-97f6-25784eab73a6#ref-CR1