Pre-Release Report

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.
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Overview

Release Date

The March 2024 release of Geoscape datasets is scheduled to be published on:

Wednesday, 27 March 2024

Summary of Product Changes

Data Model Changes

Changes to the structure of the dataset – such as new tables, changed fields, different dependencies etc.

Domain Values/Field Definition Changes

Changes to the domain or field definitions within the dataset.

Significant Production Changes

Processing changes or issues that will impact on the use or release of the dataset.

Data Model Changes

Domain Values/Field Definition Changes

Significant Production Changes

Buildings

-

-

-

Planning

Y

-

-

Trees

-

-

-

Urban Surface Cover

-

-

-

Solar

-

-

-

Product Change Details

Note

The information below is current at the time this report was published. There is a possibility the final release may contain additional changes. These will be described in the associated release report.

Buildings

Building Height Errors

Geoscape has identified approximately 100,000 building records where height attribution (building_height and eave_height) had previously contained errors causing larger heights than the real-world buildings. Errors in building heights impact the quality of derived attribution including building volume and estimated levels.

These issues occurred due to artefacts in the Digital Surface Models (DSM) impacting algorithms that calculate building heights. This issue caused height values outside of our quality thresholds to be assigned and affected the areas of: Melbourne, Brisbane (City LGA), Perth, Orange, Cairns, Townsville, Coffs Harbour, Canberra, Bendigo, Geelong, Albury-Wodonga, Grafton, Dubbo, Bundaberg and Tamworth.

The majority of affected buildings have heights with errors in the range of 5-10m. However, occurrences of much more significant localised impact have been observed of up to ~70m.

Geoscape has either recaptured the areas or applied corrections to these heights for the March 2024 Buildings release in order to assign values that more closely align with real-world heights. This, in turn, will result in more accurate volume and estimated_levels calculations for these features. The camera systems causing the DSM quality issue won’t be used for further Buildings updates.

Buildings Shapefile CNTRD_LONG and CNTRD_LAT Number Width Increase

We have become aware that for the ESRI Shapefile format, the CNTRD_LONG and CNTRD_LAT fields within the buildings table had been set with incorrect field width/precision of number (9,6). Although this width matches the product data model, Shapefiles include the decimal place towards the width which means that this value should have been assigned as number (10,6) to support possible values. This caused the last digit of the longitude and latitude to be set as 0 due to the value exceeding the file width/precision. For example, a longitude value of ‘143.546624’ would be set as ‘143.546620’ in the Shapefile output. This means that Shapefile building centroid longitude and latitude values previously had error of up to 0.12m depending on how far away the real last digit was from zero. This issue has been resolved in the March 2024 release by increasing the width/precision to number (10,6).

Improvements to address attribute in building_address table in Buildings Product

Geoscape have expanded unit type values from short form to long form for the address attribute within the building_address table for the March 2024 release. We are applying this change to improve the clarity of the address label and better align it with our other addressing products. An example of this change is shown below:

December 2023 short-form unit type:

EUREKA MARDROSS GARDENS ALBURY TNHS 31 33 MARDROSS CT, NORTH ALBURY NSW 2640

March 2024 long-form unit type:

EUREKA MARDROSS GARDENS ALBURY TOWNHOUSE 31 33 MARDROSS CT, NORTH ALBURY NSW 2640

This change will not affect address_pid values within this table.

Coverage Updates for Buildings and Solar

State

Location

Urban Area (km2)

NSW

Cowra Shire Council

31

NSW

Eurobodalla Shire Council

45

NSW

Kempsey Shire Council

132

NSW

Mid-Coast Council

19

NSW

Port Stephens Council

59

NSW

Wingecarribee Shire Council

58

QLD

Livingstone Shire

4

QLD

Rockhampton Regional

71

SA

The Rural City of Murray Bridge

51

VIC

Banyule City

62

VIC

Boroondara City

36

VIC

Brimbank City

64

VIC

Cardinia Shire

77

VIC

Casey City

284

VIC

Darebin City

42

VIC

Frankston City

84

VIC

Glen Eira City

11

VIC

Greater Dandenong City

135

VIC

Hume City

295

VIC

Kingston City

87

VIC

Knox City

108

VIC

Macedon Ranges Shire

27

VIC

Manningham City

127

VIC

Maroondah City

61

VIC

Melton City

213

VIC

Merri-Bek City

41

VIC

Mitchell Shire

49

VIC

Monash City

81

VIC

Moonee Valley City

26

VIC

Moorabool Shire

39

VIC

Nillumbik Shire

106

VIC

Stonnington City

5

VIC

Surf Coast Shire

24

VIC

Whitehorse City

64

VIC

Whittlesea City

181

VIC

Wyndham City

142

VIC

Yarra Ranges Shire

241

WA

City of Armadale

154

WA

City of Bayswater

35

WA

City of Belmont

40

WA

City of Bunbury

54

WA

City of Canning

65

WA

City of Cockburn

131

WA

City of Fremantle

20

WA

City of Gosnells

108

WA

City of Joondalup

94

WA

City of Kalamunda

117

WA

City of Kwinana

113

WA

City of Mandurah

94

WA

City of Melville

53

WA

City of Nedlands

18

WA

City of Perth

16

WA

City of Rockingham

171

WA

City of South Perth

20

WA

City of Stirling

108

WA

City of Subiaco

6

WA

City of Swan

230

WA

City of Vincent

11

WA

City of Wanneroo

239

WA

Shire of Capel

16

WA

Shire of Dardanup

21

WA

Shire of Harvey

33

WA

Shire of Mundaring

90

WA

Shire of Murray

36

WA

Shire of Peppermint Grove

1

WA

Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale

113

WA

Town of Bassendean

10

WA

Town of Cambridge

20

WA

Town of Claremont

5

WA

Town of Cottesloe

4

WA

Town of East Fremantle

4

WA

Town of Mosman Park

4

WA

Town of Victoria Park

18

Total

5,454

Planning

The planning zone data for NSW includes seven records that have a secondary_zone_description value of 'MOUNT PENANG PARKLANDS BULKY GOODS PREMISES; BUSINESS PREMISES (OTHER THAN MEDICAL CENTRES); CHILD CARE CENTRES; COMMUNITY FACILITIES; EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS; FUNCTION CENTRES; HELIPORTS; KIOSKS; LANDSCAPE AND GARDENING SUPPLIES; MARKET; OFFICES; RECREATION FACILITIES; RETAIL PREMISES; RESTAURANTS; TOURIST AND VISITOR ACCOMMODATION'.

Geoscape has increased the width of the secondary_zone_description attribute from 100 characters to 350 characters for the March 2024 release. The above value will not be truncated for File Geodatabase and GeoJSON formats. However, within ESRI Shapefile and MapInfo TAB file formats, there is a character length limit of 254 for strings. As the above value exceeds these file format limitations, the value is truncated to 'MOUNT PENANG PARKLANDS BULKY GOODS PREMISES; BUSINESS PREMISES (OTHER THAN MEDICAL CENTRES); CHILD CARE CENTRES; COMMUNITY FACILITIES; EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS; FUNCTION CENTRES; HELIPORTS; KIOSKS; LANDSCAPE AND GARDENING SUPPLIES; MARKET; OFFICES; REC'.

Coverage Updates for Trees and Urban Surface Cover

State

Location

Urban Area (km2)

NSW

Cowra Shire Council

31

NSW

Eurobodalla Shire Council

45

NSW

Kempsey Shire Council

132

NSW

Mid-Coast Council

19

NSW

Port Stephens Council

59

NSW

Wingecarribee Shire Council

58

QLD

Livingstone Shire

4

QLD

Rockhampton Regional

71

SA

The Rural City of Murray Bridge

51

VIC

Banyule City

62

VIC

Boroondara City

36

VIC

Brimbank City

64

VIC

Cardinia Shire

77

VIC

Casey City

284

VIC

Darebin City

42

VIC

Frankston City

84

VIC

Glen Eira City

11

VIC

Greater Dandenong City

135

VIC

Hume City

295

VIC

Kingston City

87

VIC

Knox City

108

VIC

Macedon Ranges Shire

27

VIC

Manningham City

127

VIC

Maroondah City

61

VIC

Melton City

213

VIC

Merri-Bek City

41

VIC

Mitchell Shire

49

VIC

Monash City

81

VIC

Moonee Valley City

26

VIC

Moorabool Shire

39

VIC

Nillumbik Shire

106

VIC

Stonnington City

5

VIC

Surf Coast Shire

24

VIC

Whitehorse City

64

VIC

Whittlesea City

181

VIC

Wyndham City

142

VIC

Yarra Ranges Shire

241

WA

City of Armadale

154

WA

City of Bayswater

35

WA

City of Belmont

40

WA

City of Bunbury

54

WA

City of Canning

65

WA

City of Cockburn

131

WA

City of Fremantle

20

WA

City of Gosnells

108

WA

City of Joondalup

94

WA

City of Kalamunda

117

WA

City of Kwinana

113

WA

City of Mandurah

94

WA

City of Melville

53

WA

City of Nedlands

18

WA

City of Perth

16

WA

City of Rockingham

171

WA

City of South Perth

20

WA

City of Stirling

108

WA

City of Subiaco

6

WA

City of Swan

230

WA

City of Vincent

11

WA

City of Wanneroo

239

WA

Shire of Capel

16

WA

Shire of Dardanup

21

WA

Shire of Harvey

33

WA

Shire of Mundaring

90

WA

Shire of Murray

36

WA

Shire of Peppermint Grove

1

WA

Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale

113

WA

Town of Bassendean

10

WA

Town of Cambridge

20

WA

Town of Claremont

5

WA

Town of Cottesloe

4

WA

Town of East Fremantle

4

WA

Town of Mosman Park

4

WA

Town of Victoria Park

18

Total

5,454