The data was collected by Professor Debra F. Laefer and her research team, and includes both a top-down view of the roofs and distribution of buildings, as well as info about their vertical surfaces. This makes it possible to build 3D models of the urban landscape with detail including building measurements, trees, power lines and poles and even curb height, CUSP says.
Open access to this scale and quality of data has big implications for researchers working on urban planning and development, and for engineering teams tackling everything from infrastructure, to autonomous vehicles, drone fleet operation, and infectious disease transmission tracking. It’s something that would understandably be of use if captured for other cities, too – and that’s exactly what CUSP hopes to do, with discussions underway to tackle New York City with a similar data imaging project next.
You can download the data set here.
