Revisiting Overture's Global Geospatial Datasets

Overture Maps has been releasing global, open geospatial datasets monthly since November, expanding their offerings from building footprints and road networks to include address lists and AI-generated land use data. Collaborating with major geospatial software providers and the OpenStreetMap community, Overture provides these datasets free of charge. Initially, their datasets were cumbersome, delivered in a Protocols Buffer file format that was difficult to search and over 90 GB in size. They have since transitioned to a more manageable Parquet format, which allows for better compression and faster data extraction. Recently, Overture launched an Explorer web application that enables users to inspect datasets directly in a browser, utilizing a serverless architecture to efficiently manage data retrieval. The latest datasets include comprehensive address data for 14 countries, sourced from the OpenAddresses project, which aims to alleviate the financial burden associated with acquiring address data. The datasets are continuously evolving, with the building dataset alone comprising 363 GB in the latest release. Overture's efforts are expected to significantly reduce costs and technical challenges for future geospatial projects.

- Overture Maps publishes global geospatial datasets monthly, expanding topics covered.

- Datasets transitioned from a cumbersome Protocols Buffer format to a more efficient Parquet format.

- A new Explorer web application allows users to inspect datasets in a browser.

- The latest release includes address data for 14 countries, sourced from OpenAddresses.

- Overture's datasets aim to reduce costs and technical challenges in geospatial projects.