I noticed that there's another question related to this topic, but the question was related to US data.
I'm looking at the possibility of producing an interactive map for a UK based city, which would benefit from an overlay describing the building footprints in the city centre.
Does anyone know of a good source for this information? Ideally the source would be free, but commercial suppliers could also be considered.
Many thanks in advance.
Although previously expensive, Ordnance Survey MasterMap (Topography Layer) is now available for free for certain uses (making apps, products and services for third parties, and for internal business use) through the OS Maps API
Scale 1:1250-1:2500 (Full GB Coverage including rural areas)
Topography Layer is a detailed, intelligent, geographic database. It contains almost half a billion features from the built and natural landscape of Britain.
An Alternative is http://www.theukmap.co.uk/ukmap/base/
Scale 1:1000 (limited coverage major cities) Basic Land and Property Units (BLPUs) are provided to enable identification of single property units for improved service delivery. (Cheaper than above)
OpenStreetMap is a good free alternative to both but you will be limited to major city centres for building outlines.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM-3D#Buildings (footprints)
Ordnance Survey, Open Data
Just found out about this service, so thought I'd add an answer as an alternative. Building footprints are included at the most detailed levels - although all buildings are rendered as homogenised blobs.
After reading the licensing information it appears that the data can be adapted - so tracing might be an option.
"These terms have been aligned to be interoperable with any Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence. This means that you may mix the information with Creative Commons licensed content to create a derivative work that can be distributed under any Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence."
Cached Version of OpenData (& data converted to WGS84) available at:
