The Overture Maps Foundation (OMF), a partnership of Microsoft, Meta and TomTom, among others, is making datasets generally available for the first time. Tech companies are already using the collected map data in their products.
The data collected by Overture comes from many different sources. The goal of the collaboration is to make this data uniform for commercial and academic use. However, executive director at OMF Marc Prioleau says General Availability (GA) is a crucial milestone. “Getting to GA is a major milestone because it opens the gates for adoption by map developers.” The wider deployment will lead to continuous feedback and improvement, according to Prioleau.
Tip: Overture Maps releases first global dataset in alpha
Just the beginning
Jan Erik Solem, director of Maps at Meta and affiliated with Overture Maps, sees GA as just the beginning. “Next-generation map products will enable a broad range of goods and services and Overture is on the leading edge of developing the open map data that will underpin that innovation. Meta is already using this dataset for maps across Meta applications, and I encourage all to look at it, use it, and help us make it better.”
Overture Maps needs outside aid to grow its datasets. It benefits from a snowball effect with more contributors, more data and more users. After all, external information is the only way to continually add to, refine and refresh the map data.
200 million addresses
The release includes four themes, which Overture says already clearly indicate the use cases that are possible. Under Buildings, there is data on 2.3 billion buildings. Bing Maps, Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World and Adresscloud’s insurance platform already use it.
Places of Interest contains 54 million locations, Divisions covers administrative boundaries between countries and regions in 40 different languages, and “Base” counts as a dataset for land and water data so that maps are properly displayed.
As these themes launch in GA, a new dataset also appears in alpha form. Data on 200 million addresses across 14 countries form the basis for the new “Address” theme. Despite these large numbers, it is not yet as advanced as the already launched themes.
Also read: Open mapping is the future, according to Overture Maps