Building Footprints

Building Footprints is LightBox's nationwide dataset of building outlines for the United States. LightBox added building footprint data through its 2021 acquisition of BuildingFootPrintUSA. It gives real estate, insurance, energy and planning teams the geometry of the buildings on a property, not only the parcel boundary.

LightBox compiles the footprints in three ways: shapes collected from authoritative county, city, state and township sources; LiDAR where no authoritative source exists, which also yields ground elevation and height; and image extraction. The product page names satellite imagery, aerial photography and authoritative sources among its inputs; the satellite missions used are not named. Each footprint follows the exterior walls and carries estimated building height, surface and ground elevation and number of stories. The provider states 100% nationwide building coverage, and its documentation describes building shapes larger than 250 square feet for more than 99% of the US population. LightBox Labs reports remote sensing and data matching of more than 100 million building footprints using LiDAR-based modelling.

Footprints are linked to LightBox parcel, address, assessment and ownership data through the persistent LightBox ID, and can be looked up by UBID (Unique Building Identifier). Buyers receive the data as bulk CSV, SHP or GeoJSON files, through the Structures REST API (query by geometry, bounding box, parcel, address, LightBox ID or UBID, plus map tile overlays), through an Esri feature service for GIS applications, or in the LightBox Vision mapping tool. LightBox lists 3D property visualisation, solar potential and shadow analysis, insurance risk modelling and underwriting, and urban planning as uses.