Overview

This service is part of Esri UK's Maps+ offering. Created using the best available data sources, Maps+ is ready to use across the ArcGIS System. For more information including how-to guides, please see this site: Help | Maps+ (esriuk.com)

Ordnance Survey ® MasterMap Buildings layer provides detailed and accurate large-scale representation of areas described as ‘Buildings’ across Great Britain. The layer contains building features that represent objects in the physical environment. There are over 45 million features in this current product. It is available for all of Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Geographic features are modelled in such a way as to make it easy to identify buildings at a glance. The data has been collected by Ordnance Survey and is based on the British National Grid.

This data contains Building Height Attributes which can be used to make simple 3D visualisations and to analyse the built environment, for example:

• To visualise urban landscapes to inform planning decisions and contribute to planning policy;
• To model the impact of new developments with increased efficiency;
• For risk assessment in emergency planning;
• Understanding the issues with installing new utility assets; and
• To use in insurance calculation models.

The data has been collected by Ordnance Survey and is based on the British National Grid. The key characteristics and benefits of the Topography Buildings Layer are:

• Individual real-world building features represented by polygons, each with their own unique reference, called a TOID®.
• Employing a scale of data capture appropriate to the density of features – the higher the number of features within an area, the larger the scale used to survey them – ensuring the detail of individual features can be shown and with coordinates delivered in British National Grid.
• The underlying data is developed, managed, and maintained by Ordnance Survey within one of the world’s largest spatial databases.
• The data is delivered as a seamless, geographically contiguous area. This means that the user receives only the area they order without additional, unwanted data, as may happen with tile-based products.
• Each feature is uniquely referenced and has attributes that record the feature’s life cycle. The feature’s life cycle is linked to the life cycle of the real-world object it represents. The life cycle records certain types of changes to the feature that occur over time.

Methodology

OS MasterMap Building polygons have been created from the OS MasterMap Topography Area Layer. The criteria used to extract the buildings was: Where Theme contains the text “Buildings”.

For further information please see OS MasterMap Topography Layer support page.