The Overture Maps Foundation — a joint effort by AWS, Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom to create reliable, interoperable open map data that developers can use — has announced the general availability release of its global open maps datasets.
This release includes 2.3 building footprints, which can be used for things like property management, risk assessment, economic development, and 3D visualization. It is already used to power Microsoft’s Bing Maps, Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, and Addresscloud’s insurance service platform.
Other information includes data on almost 54 million places, national and regional administrative boundaries (translated into 40+ languages), and contextual base layers like land and water data.
“The data in this GA release is already powering use cases in local discovery, insurance, and mapping industries, and we expect many more use cases in the coming months from industries ranging from automotive to ride-sharing and more,” said Marc Prioleau, executive director of Overture Maps Foundation. “Getting to GA is a major milestone because it opens the gates for adoption by map developers. As the map data gets used, developers and users will provide feedback which creates mechanisms for continuous improvement.”
Overture is currently working on adding more transportation elements, such as clear road routes with recognizable highway signs, rail and ferry route data, and better handling of traffic rules and restrictions. These should be generally available in the coming months.
In addition, the Foundation also made an alpha release of its Address dataset available, which will include 14 countries and over 200 million addresses. According to Overture, address data will lead to advances in navigation, logistics, and search. To help make this Address dataset easier to explore, Overture also added new visualization tools.
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