Buildings

Disclaimer

Geoscape Australia believes this publication to be correct at the time of printing and does not accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of the information herein. Readers should rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission of Geoscape Australia.

Overview

Buildings is a digital dataset representing buildings across Australia. The Buildings dataset has relationships with the G-NAF, Cadastre, Property and Administrative Boundaries products produced by Geoscape Australia.

Data quality and potential capture timelines will vary across Australia based on three categories. Each category has been developed based on several factors defined by the population distribution (categorised based on population size), industrial/commercial activities, the probability of natural events (e.g. flooding) and the image source.

• Urban (satellite source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from satellite imagery

• Urban (aerial source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from aerial imagery

• Rural – all other areas

Geoscape welcomes your feedback on the Buildings product. We also publish regular product development updates on our website ( www.geoscape.com.au ).

Release Summary

This product was released to customers on 23 December 2025 with data extracted on 5 December 2025.

• This release is a full national data population for Version 3.3 of the Buildings product, described by the Buildings Product Guide v3.3.

Any issues that have been identified for this release are described in the Issues section.

This release includes updates for the areas listed in the table below.

Locations of updated areas by State

State	Location	Urban Area (km2)
NSW	Bayside Council	51
NSW	Blacktown City Council	194
NSW	Blue Mountains City Council	14
NSW	Burwood Council	7
NSW	Camden Council	33
NSW	Campbelltown City Council	13
NSW	Canterbury-Bankstown Council	109
NSW	Cessnock City Council	91
NSW	City of Canada Bay Council	20
NSW	City of Parramatta Council	84
NSW	Council of the City of Sydney	26
NSW	Cumberland Council	72
NSW	Fairfield City Council	102
NSW	Georges River Council	28
NSW	Hawkesbury City Council	45
NSW	Inner West Council	35
NSW	Ku-ring-gai Council	48
NSW	Lake Macquarie City Council	3
NSW	Lane Cove Municipal Council	10
NSW	Liverpool City Council	241
NSW	Maitland City Council	3
NSW	Mosman Municipal Council	9
NSW	North Sydney Council	10
NSW	Northern Beaches Council	70
NSW	Penrith City Council	250
NSW	Randwick City Council	36
NSW	Ryde City Council	41
NSW	Singleton Council	8
NSW	Strathfield Municipal Council	14
NSW	Sutherland Shire Council	2
NSW	The Council of the Municipality of Hunters Hill	6
NSW	The Council of the Shire of Hornsby	73
NSW	The Hills Shire Council	204
NSW	Tweed Shire Council	1
NSW	Unincorporated - Botany Bay Area	2
NSW	Unincorporated - Sydney Harbour Area	31
NSW	Waverley Council	9
NSW	Willoughby City Council	22
NSW	Wollondilly Shire Council	24
NSW	Woollahra Municipal Council	12
QLD	Brisbane City	592
QLD	Bundaberg Regional	103
QLD	Fraser Coast Regional	43
QLD	Gold Coast City	317
QLD	Ipswich City	247
QLD	Livingstone Shire	3
QLD	Logan City	2
QLD	Moreton Bay City	573
QLD	Noosa Shire	54
QLD	Redland City	31
QLD	Rockhampton Regional	71
QLD	Scenic Rim Regional	2
QLD	Sunshine Coast Regional	361
WA	City of Swan	145
WA	Shire of Mundaring	3
Total		4,600

[1]

Location names are derived from an intersection with the most recent Local Government Area dataset, Geoscape, 2023.

Spatial files of the updated areas are available upon request via support@geoscape.com.au.

Change Notifications

National Buildings 4.0 - Update and Sample Data

Geoscape’s Buildings product is evolving into a new and enhanced package called “National Buildings”, scheduled for release in March 2026.

This change brings improved attribution, better integration capabilities, and a stronger foundation for delivering future innovation in building insights.

National Buildings will be packaged with a base “Buildings” dataset, with additional aspatial “Insights Packs” available that are designed to provide specific understanding or knowledge about a particular topic/theme for an industry or use-case.

This will be the final release in the current format. Starting March 2026, all releases will adopt the new format.

Supporting Your Transition

Geoscape is committed to supporting current customers through this transition. We’ve reached out to customers to:

• share information sheets outlining the key changes,

• discuss change impacts to help you prepare, and

• provide guidance to support a smooth changeover.

If you haven’t had a session with one of our solution consultants and would like to, please contact Geoscape Support via: support@geoscape.com.au

We will continue providing more detailed information leading up to the March release. Please keep an eye out for messages from Geoscape Support.

Sample Data

To facilitate early transition planning, sample data is available through the Geoscape Hub “Demos” section, specifically under “National Buildings (Chatswood)”. You can review the sample data at: https://hub.geoscape.com.au/demos/.

The demo offers a visual representation of Geoscape data for the Chatswood area and includes a “DOWNLOAD SAMPLE” button. This allows users to obtain a sample of buildings data formatted according to the updated packaging and data model. The sample can be used to begin preparations, such as reviewing schema changes or updating data ingestion pipelines.

The sample is “Sample Data” as defined and governed by our Geoscape Terms of Use (see clause 29 ‘Sample Data Licence’), which means you may only use it for evaluation, not for business or commercial purposes. However, for current Buildings customers, we will extend the evaluation period to up to six months (instead of one month under clause 29.3(a)).

The sample package contains five zipped files:

• National Buildings (Base)

• Building Height - Insight Pack

• Building Roof - Insight Pack

• Building Solar – Insight Pack

• Address Pool – Insight Pack

The ZIP files are structured in the same way National Buildings data will be delivered from the March 2026 release.

The sample data is described within documents that are available for download within the Demo “Product Documentation” section.

Change to product version numbering (Effective March 2026)

From March 2026, we’ll be updating version numbering to a new format: MAJOR-MINOR-EXTRACT (e.g., 004-000-001). This approach provides a clear and consistent structure, making it easier for users to identify product versions and understand update levels. The change is intended to improve transparency, reduce ambiguity, and support more efficient integration and usage of our data products.

‘National’ Branding

Geoscape products are transitioning to ‘National’ branding, reflecting our focus on a smarter, safer and more productive Australia and our role in the national interest.

Issues

New Issues

Perth Building Height Adjustment

An error was identified in the source data used to generate building heights for an area of Perth during the September 2025 release. A limited number of buildings in that area were affected, and heights for these buildings have been reverted to the March 2025 values for the December 2025 release. A refresh of the area is planned within the next year. This issue did not impact other areas. Additional checks have been implemented to prevent similar issues in future processing.

Resolved Issues

No resolved issues to note.

Known Issues

Incorrect metal primary_roof_material assignment

In the update areas for the September 2024 release, we noticed that a large number of buildings have been classified with a primary_roof_material of ‘Metal’. On investigation, it was identified that this classification was not correct in many cases and so the primary_roof_material values were rolled back to the previous (June 2024) values where possible. We are looking to update these areas in an upcoming release to resolve remaining mis-classification and are working with our data supplier to improve this classification for future supplies.

Incorrect roof_type, roof_shape and roof_slope assignment

In the update areas for the September 2024 release, we noticed that a large number of buildings have been classified with a roof_type and roof shape of ‘Flat’ and roof_slope of ‘0’. On investigation, it was identified that this classification was not correct in many cases and so these values were rolled back to the previous (June 2024) values where possible. We are looking to update these areas in an upcoming release to resolve remaining mis-classification and are working with our data supplier to improve this classification for future supplies.

Centroid not within building polygon

When mapping the building centroid from the centroid_longitude and centroid_latitude there will be occurrences where the point does not fall inside the building geometry. This occurs because of the complexity of the building geometry and impacts < 0.1% of buildings. A fix for this issue will be investigated for a future release.

Swimming_pool_adjacent incorrectly ‘null’

Some records containing attribution for swimming_pool_review_date also contain ‘null’ attribution for swimming pool adjacent where the allowed values are ‘no’ or ‘yes’. This affects < 0.25% of buildings.

Duplication of buildings between update areas

New and updated buildings are captured within Areas of Interest (AOIs). Buildings that intersect two adjacent AOIs are duplicated. This issue affects approximately 1,800 buildings.

Duplicate building polygons

There are 8,417 buildings with duplicate geometries, resulting in 8,427 additional building polygons present. A fix for this issue will be investigated for a future release.

Roof colour assignment

There is an over classification of light roof colours primarily in the Melbourne region. Advances in processing has improved this issue in recent releases.

Building position offset from imagery

There is evidence of buildings having a horizontal shift of approximately 0.5m in the NSW suburbs of Parramatta and the Dee Why area. This has occurred where the new shift to the digital elevation model has not worked as intended. As we continue to refine the aerial derived building processes, we’ll seek to resolve this issue.

Over-capture of metal roof material in aerial supplies

In the June 2022 release, we noticed that there was an over-capture of Metal roof type in the aerial capture. This occurred primarily for residential buildings. In some areas of the aerial capture (e.g. Perth and Cairns), Metal classification was actually improved overall in relation to the previous satellite capture (satellite previously incorrectly classified Metal roofs as Tile). We are working with our production partners to improve the accuracy of the roof_material attribute, which can be affected by image smoothing, causing Tile roofs to be incorrectly classified as Metal.

Future Considerations

This section outlines enhancements or changes under consideration, but not planned into a specific release. For further details on future initiatives, please contact Geoscape Support.

Legacy ‘CAD’ naming

The building_cad table contains a field that is called ‘cad_pid’, while the Cadastre product has an attribute called ‘cadastre_pid’. We have input the ‘cadastre_pid’ values into this ‘cad_pid’ field to not affect customer processes with attribute name changes. In addition, the table name of ‘building_cad’ no longer matches the Cadastre product. There is no current plan to change either the ‘building_cad’ table name or ‘cad_pid’ field name.

Additional Total Floor Area attribute

Geoscape intends to introduce a new total_floor_area attribute to a future release of the Geoscape Buildings product. This attribute will provide the estimated sum of floor space across all levels of a building. At the time of the addition of this new attribute there will be a minor increment to the Geoscape Buildings product version.

Annex A – Release Counts

For the buildings table the additional, retired, updated and total building counts, as well as the percent change to the previous release have been listed in the table below. For the aspatial tables the total record counts have been listed.

TABLE	STATISTIC	FLAG	ACT	NSW	NT	OT	QLD	SA	TAS	VIC	WA	TOTAL
buildings	Additional		0	73,441	0	0	59,501	0	0	0	30	132,972
	Retired		0	60,470	0	0	38,587	0	0	0	24	99,081
	Updated		1,635	1,515,025	229	0	1,308,960	5,506	2,620	16,294	16,109	2,866,378
	Total		252,523	5,411,504	166,891	449	3,846,771	1,802,976	598,595	5,088,787	2,287,366	19,455,862
	% Change		0.00%	0.24%	0.00%	0.00%	0.55%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.17%
	Solar Panel	Yes	55,080	732,745	18,904	8	759,484	315,388	35,511	635,722	420,578	2,973,420
		No	196,125	3,791,945	115,220	329	2,499,028	1,135,891	405,608	3,677,988	1,480,578	13,302,712
	Swimming Pool Adjacent	Yes	20,812	769,696	46,095	0	824,464	145,515	10,058	342,594	371,128	2,530,362
		No	230,447	3,764,856	87,435	355	2,441,530	1,304,204	433,909	3,984,611	1,532,912	13,780,259
building_cad			300,699	12,528,320	398,114	554	5,809,092	2,313,396	728,083	9,681,119	4,569,705	36,329,082
building_property			261,550	12,774,264	322,757	0	5,798,966	2,225,823	630,479	11,882,637	2,350,272	36,246,748
building_address			912,852	12,004,372	323,497	151	10,152,758	2,926,956	739,226	8,864,783	4,042,175	39,966,770

References

[Aerometrex, 2023]

Aerometrex. Aerial imagery. Raster Dataset, 2023. URL: https://aerometrex.com.au/.

[Geoscape, 2023]

Geoscape. Local government areas 2.0. 2023. URL: https://docs.geoscape.com.au/projects/lga_guide/en/stable/index.html.