Data sources

VoxCity integrates many open geospatial datasets. This reference lists the datasets available for each layer of a city model — building footprints and heights, tree canopy height, land cover, and terrain elevation — together with their coverage, resolution, and provenance.

For guidance on choosing between these sources, see the Choosing data sources guide.

Building

Dataset	Spatial Coverage	Source/Data Acquisition
OpenStreetMap	Worldwide (24% completeness in city centers)	Volunteered / updated continuously
Microsoft Building Footprints	North America, Europe, Australia	Prediction from satellite or aerial imagery / 2018-2019 for majority of the input imagery
Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal Dataset	Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia	Prediction from satellite imagery / 2016-2023
EUBUCCO v0.1	27 EU countries and Switzerland (378 regions and 40,829 cities)	OpenStreetMap, government datasets / 2003-2021 (majority is after 2019)
UT-GLOBUS	Worldwide (more than 1200 cities or locales)	Prediction from building footprints, population, spaceborne nDSM / not provided
Overture Maps	Worldwide	OpenStreetMap, Esri Community Maps Program, Google Open Buildings, etc. / updated continuously

Tree canopy height

Dataset	Coverage	Resolution	Source/Data Acquisition
High Resolution 1m Global Canopy Height Maps	Worldwide	1 m	Prediction from satellite imagery / 2009 and 2020 (80% are 2018-2020)
ETH Global Sentinel-2 10m Canopy Height (2020)	Worldwide	10 m	Prediction from satellite imagery / 2020

Land cover

Dataset	Spatial Coverage	Resolution	Source/Data Acquisition
ESA World Cover 10m 2021 V200	Worldwide	10 m	Prediction from satellite imagery / 2021
ESRI 10m Annual Land Cover (2017-2023)	Worldwide	10 m	Prediction from satellite imagery / 2017-2023
Dynamic World V1	Worldwide	10 m	Prediction from satellite imagery / updated continuously
OpenStreetMap	Worldwide	- (Vector)	Volunteered / updated continuously
OpenEarthMap Japan	Japan	~1 m	Prediction from aerial imagery / 1974-2022 (mostly after 2018 in major cities)
UrbanWatch	22 major cities in the US	1 m	Prediction from aerial imagery / 2014–2017

Terrain elevation

Dataset	Coverage	Resolution	Source/Data Acquisition
FABDEM	Worldwide	30 m	Correction of Copernicus DEM using canopy height and building footprints data / 2011-2015 (Copernicus DEM)
DeltaDTM	Worldwide (Only for coastal areas below 10m + mean sea level)	30 m	Copernicus DEM, spaceborne LiDAR / 2011-2015 (Copernicus DEM)
USGS 3DEP 1m DEM	United States	1 m	Aerial LiDAR / 2004-2024 (mostly after 2015)
England 1m Composite DTM	England	1 m	Aerial LiDAR / 2000-2022
Australian 5M DEM	Australia	5 m	Aerial LiDAR / 2001-2015
RGE Alti	France	1 m	Aerial LiDAR

Citing data sources

Please credit the original authors of any dataset you use. Full citations are collected in the Bibliography.