Cognised existence: A building is a roofed, permanent physical structure that shelters human activity. It has use, age, size, and technical characteristics — and it occupies space, but its geometry may come from different sources than its attributes.
Question: What buildings exist at a location and what are their characteristics?
What is a Building?
A building combines two kinds of data: registry attributes (what it is, when it was built, how it’s used) and geometric footprint (its shape on the ground). These often come from different datasets. Understanding which to query depends on what you need.
Realisations
Instead of hardcoding implementation schemas here, SPHERE separates semantic meaning from dataset implementation. See the following realisations for how to access this data:
Geometry Representations
A building query must declare which geometric encoding is used. These representations are not interchangeable.
| Rep ID | Source Dataset | Geometry Type | Native CRS | Field Path | Suitable For | Not Suitable For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
buildings_bbr_centroid | BBR (BBR_Bygning) | Point | EPSG:25832 | byg404Koordinat.wkt | Density mapping, point-in-polygon queries, proximity counts | Area statistics, footprint overlap, spatial join to polygon layers |
buildings_geodanmark_footprint | GeoDanmark | Polygon | EPSG:25832 | geometri | Area calculation, footprint overlap, visual representation, join to BBR attributes | Network routing |
buildings_dar_address_point | DAR (husnummer.adgangspunkt) | Point | EPSG:25832 | adgangspunkt.position | Geocoding, address-level mapping | Building-specific attributes (requires join back to BBR via husnummer) |
buildings_osm_footprint | OpenStreetMap | Polygon | WGS84 | way geometry | General mapping, open-data contexts | Official Danish register accuracy, bitemporal analysis |
Default assumption is wrong: BBR centroid is the easiest geometry to extract but is not suitable for area statistics, shadow/solar analysis, or any operation requiring the building outline. If the question involves shape, size, or spatial overlap — select buildings_geodanmark_footprint and join to BBR for attributes.
Classical Theme References
| Standard | Theme | Link |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 19115 | Structure | |Structure |
| INSPIRE | Buildings | |Buildings |
| UN-GGIM | Buildings and Settlements | |Buildings and Settlements |