AI Powered 2.5D Buildings

AI Powered 2.5D Buildings is KPGeo's building data product: building footprints delivered as vector models with each building's height as an attribute (2.5D building models). Such models are used in spatial and urban planning, telecommunications, navigation, aviation and noise analysis, but producing them conventionally relies on LiDAR or stereo aerial or satellite imagery, and the price has kept them out of reach for some users and applications.

KPGeo's process works instead from widely available monoscopic (single) satellite images and the metadata that comes with them. Machine-learning algorithms, in particular artificial neural networks, extract building outlines and calculate building heights automatically. According to KPGeo, 80-90% of the data is produced fully automatically and the remainder is refined manually, and all AI-based processes are supervised and checked by the company's GIS professionals.

The product is offered for locations anywhere on Earth, with published samples for Kraków, Edmonton and Darwin. Buyers order through KPGeo's online order service by uploading an area of interest (ESRI Shapefile, GML or KMZ/KML) or drawing it on a map, and KPGeo states that models are available in a few days. Prices are not published.

The technology was developed in KPGeo's R&D project "Machine learning and monoscopic satellite imagery in generation of 2.5D building models" (July 2021 to June 2023), co-financed by European Funds under the Smart Growth Programme (PLN 1,386,175 of a PLN 1,807,375 project value).