Somewhat fitting a new geospatial start-up would emerge in the Albany area.   The region being home to MapInfo, an early player in the desktop GIS software market appearing at number 23 in Inc. Magazine’s annual list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. in 1992.   While the software product is still around, the company has since been acquired by Pitney Bowes.  Across the Empire State geospatial landscape it’s not uncommon to bump into someone working in the GIS space with ties to MapInfo.

Case in point, in 2016 four ex-MapInfo colleagues, each with over 25-years of experience in the geospatial space focusing largely on data development, went out on their own and launched BuildingFootprintUSA with the intent of providing to the geospatial industry spatially accurate and attribute rich building footprints covering the United States.  Their initial focus has to been to provide data to the location based advertising, insurance, and telecommunications industries.  In January of this year, Geoawesomeness included BuildingfootprintsUSA (BFUSA) in the 2019 Top 100 Geospatial Companies and Startups List.

BuildingFootprintUSA’s 3D model of Albany including the Empire State Plaza. Buildings are commonly attributed with addresses and assessment data.

Given that the company is only three years old and has only a handful of full-time employees, BFUSA might be considered a typical tech start-up.  However, co-owner Scott Robinson notes that the company is in the midst of significant growth with a growing list of clients nationwide.  The company is an ESRI Emerging Business Partner and is part of the START-UP NY Program in a partnership with SUNY Albany.

The fast-growing company’s catalog already includes over 90 million footprints covering 75% of the US population, several large clients and to date has not required any external funding.  Using an addressed building footprint as the foundation of their product line, BFUSA routinely connects a wide range of attribute data to the footprint including, but not limited to, census designations and demographics, assessment files, property and facility information, and business characteristics such as category and size of company.  For residential structures, detailed demographics (i.e. age, race, income, education, etc) and household profiles on consumer behavior and lifestyles are also available.  Structure height (z-value) is also included in the footprint dataset which is derived from available LIDAR databases as well generated from their own photogrammetry or other BFUSA business partners.

“We are committed to data integrity”, notes co-owner Scott Robinson, “our work is essentially a  huge data curation effort – blending and harmonizing data from many different sources including open data portals, government websites, and commercial data services”.   Specific and very detailed attention is given to the spatial/positional accuracy of the footprint as well as the numerous data fields associated with the footprint.  Robinson points out that not all building footprints are created alike noting that many “single” footprints can be comprised of several offices or living spaces such commercial buildings and/or condominiums and apartment buildings.  Similarly the same footprint can have different heights (z-value) which factors into line-of-sight analyses and wireless signal studies.  He continues “It’s not uncommon to find at least 25% of the building footprints we receive from others to be off at least 100 feet”.

Specific examples of how BuildingFootprintUSA products and services are used include:

Insurance

In assessing structural risks in designated flood plains, using building footprints versus parcel centroids provides a more informed evaluation. In this example, dots represent parcel centroids. In some instances where parcel centroids are located in the flood plain, associated parcel structures may/may not be (orange and yellow) vulnerable to flooding. Both a red dot and red footprint indicate a more vulnerable property while both a green dot and green footprint imply major property assets are not subject to flooding.

Telecom

A Telco company uses BuildingFootprintUSA data to understand optimal placement of 5G network towers in NYC; based identifying what buildings the signal can reach and what are the characteristics of the building itself. In this picture residential buildings are shaded by affluence of the residents.

Location Based Advertising (AdTech)

Detailed business data attributed to building footprints can then be integrated with consumer movement data generated by mobile devices. Buffers around specific buildings can support a variety of pattern analyses which provides a very educated guess on where a mobile device has been over a period of time. Using both store visit insights and foot-traffic data, building footprint data empowers retail analytics firms and real estate asset managers to conduct live trade area analysis and give retailers insights on the characteristics of these people, and know the reasons that are drawing people to those locations.

BuildingFootprintUSA data products are currently available via ESRI Shapefiles and geodatabase (GDB) and MapInfo TAB in Coordinate System WGS84.  Later in 2019 the company plans to offer data via an API. Datasets are typically sold as nationwide coverages though smaller geographic footprint are available as well.  Data is offered by annual license with quarterly updates.

Summary

Refreshing to see a geospatial start-up emerge in Albany only minutes from the Empire State Plaza.  With the UAV technology well recognized and established from Syracuse into the Mohawk Valley Region, we can be optimistic that BuildingFootprintUSA’s success – and perhaps by extension its association with START-UP NY – will be recognized and brought to the attention of the state’s elected officials.  Highlighting both the company’s contribution to the local and state economy and illustrate how geospatial marketplace commodities are routinely produced and made available by industry.

Perhaps a start to similar industry growth in the greater Albany and Hudson River Valley region.

Contact:

Scott Robinson, VP Strategy
scott@buildingfootprintusa.com
BuildingFootprintUSA
200 Great Oaks Blvd, Suite 214
Albany, NY 12203
518-218-4444