The Countywide building outline dataset contains building outlines (over 3,000,000) for all buildings in Los Angeles County, including building height, building area, and the parcel number (also known as building footprints). This data was captured from stereo imagery as part of the LAR-IAC2 Project (2008 acquisition).
There are a number of sources, listed here:
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City of Palmdale – building outlines from the LAR-IAC (2006) imagery – derived from orthogonal imagery.
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City of Pasadena – building outlines from earlier imagery, updated with LAR-IAC2 (2008) imagery in 2008
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City of Glendale – building outlines from earlier imagery, updated with LAR-IAC2 (2008) imagery in 2008
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City of Los Angeles – building outlines from LAR-IAC2 (2008), stereo generated, for all buildings > 64 square feet
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The rest of the County – building outlines from LAR-IAC2 (2008), stereo generated, for all buildings > 400 square feet
Most of the buildings in this dataset were generated using stereo imagery. This means that the person capturing the buildings actually saw them in 3-D, and therefore was able to more accurately capture the location of the roof line, since this method eliminated the impacts of building lean (where the height of the building impacts its apparent location). Basically – this is the most accurate method for capturing building outlines. In many cases the location is more accurate than our aerial photography and parcel boundaries.
Data Field Descriptions
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CODE - Building type (either Building or Couryard). Note that in areas not covered by LAR-IAC courtyards are not tagged as such.
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BLD_ID - unique building ID
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HEIGHT - the height of the highest major feature of the building (not including roof objects like antennas and chimneys)
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ELEV - the elevation of the building
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AREA - the Roof area
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SOURCE - the data source (either LARIAC2, Pasadena, Palmdale, or Glendale)
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DATE - Date Captured (2006, 2008, or blank)
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AIN - the Parcel ID number. This was computed from the center of the building. If a building covers two parcels, only one of the parcels will be captured. If a building contains many parcels (Condominiums for example) only one of the parcels will be captured.
