Buildings

Feature page: Buildings

Description

Used to describe many different sorts of buildings, including houses, factories and ruined buildings.

Tags

building=* height=* building:levels=* name=*

Contents 1 Tagging 2 How to map 2.1 in JOSM 2.2 in Potlatch 3 Some ways to get the outline of the building 4 See also 5 Proposals 6 Examples

Tagging

A single building outline can be created for each building complex or 'block', which may relate to a single detached property, or to a row of individual terraced houses or to some more complex arrangement of properties. It is however better to create a series of linked outlines which share some nodes at the boundary to identify each distinct part of the property.

In addition outlines can either be simplified shapes or very outlines which conform very accurately to the shape of the building. In is not uncommon for buildings to initially be described as simple group outlines later be improved with more detailed outlines and to be split into individual properties.

Buildings can simply be building=yes or use a value that describes the building typology, for example building=house, building=hut, building=garage, building=school. See building=* for a more complete list of options and have a look at what is actually used.

The address of the building can also be added. This can either be attached to the building outline, or more usefully to the appropriate main entrance which should have a node tagged with building=entrance and/or entrance=*.

For larger public building with many entrances for different purposes and for us by different people the building entrance can also be tagged with a access=*. A building entrance can be connected to a description of the footpath access to the entrance by highway=footway and highway=steps etc. Where appropriate multiple entrances can have appropriate postal addresses.

How to map

When tracing from aerial imagery try to estimate the place where the building position on the ground which may be offset from the roof-line as shown by the imagery on the far side given that images are normally taken from an angle.

If the building has an interior courtyard the use a Multipolygon relation to ensure that the courtyard is not rendered as part of the building.

• Please consider adding house numbers nodes to buildings with tags in addr:*=*-Namespace:

building=entrance (if you know where the entrance is)

addr:street=*

addr:housenumber=*

addr:postcode=*

...

(more values and detailed information here: Key:addr)

ITO Map has a layer to help track building address details

OSM Inspector is also able to help in checking these tags

in JOSM

• You can make existing buildings look a little better by orthogonalizing them in JOSM (hotkey 'Q'). Be sure you're using a projection like Mercator, otherwise if you use something like WGS84, then objects will be distorted when rendered. This may make them have odd angles but usually works pretty good. Please be aware that not all buildings are orthogonal and sometimes it is better to keep an odd looking polygon instead of making a curved shape rectangular.

• JOSM/Plugins/BuildingsTools makes mapping of buildings a lot more convenient (hotkey 'W'). This works best for buildings with four nodes.

• JOSM/Plugins/Terracer is for quickly mapping a row of terraced houses.

in Potlatch

In Potlach, you can add several buildings quickly especially in residential areas by tracing the building with one hand with the mouse and then with the other hand pressing the 'R' key to add the properties of the previously selected building. Add the source, building tag and whatever other tag you want on the first building then copy it to the other buildings.

Some ways to get the outline of the building

• Aerial photographs (e.g. Bing or Yahoo! Aerial Imagery). There are also some tips and tricks for roof modelling.
• Observations from street level, drawing a sketch, or even taking measurements
• Walking around the edge of the building taking a GPS trace. Good enough for big buildings (e.g. a stadium) but being close to walls is bad for GPS accuracy.
• French Cadastre

See also

• shop=* (to indicate that the building is used as a specific shop)
• amenity=* (to describe what the building is used for, for example: school, theatre, bank, ...)
• building=entrance (to mark the entrances to the building)
• architect=* to indicate the architect of a building
• ruins=* - for ruins of buildings

Proposals

• Proposed features/Building - original proposal, which mentions various other ideas
• Proposed features/Building attributes - attributes proposal
• Relations/Proposed/Buildings - (to group buildings and other related things together)
• 3D Development (modeling buildings in 3D)
• 2nd 3D Workshop Garching (event on modelling buildings held in Garching, Germany. March 2012)

Examples

• 

  Sutton Coldfield rendered by mapnik ([1])

• 

  Sutton Coldfield rendered by osmarender ([2])