How to Count Houses on Map.

How to Count Houses on Map

How to Count Houses on Map. Counting houses using digital maps allows us to easily make estimations for business case analysis, other humanitarian and social uses cases that require its application. We need to know how to quickly count houses or buildings on a map.

The ability to counts buildings across Africa or other natural disaster zones is useful to be able to assess the number of buildings or households affected. To be able to estimate the humanitarian services requirements and level of demand for social amenities.

Free Digital Maps to Count Houses 

Techniques and Technologies

  • Open Building ( you can Explore, FAQ, Data format, Download)
  • OpenStreetMap(OSM) data from Python and Overpass Turbo API
    • Using Overpass Turbo ( Challenges In Africa – This map intentionally left blank, (received empty dataset))
    • Using Python library called overpy that allows executing Overpass queries from Python
  • Satellite imagery (high resolution households) and use a Computer Vision(CV) algorithm to count the houses.

Counting Houses or Building on Satellite Imagery

Use-case: Counting Buildings in an Area Using Overpass Turbo

  • Overpass Turbo API uses OSM stored data for analysis
  • The OSM stored data is encoded as elements on their maps and expressed using a collection of points, each one with a single latitude and longitude;
    • Nodes are individual points generally used to mark places such as individual shops.
    • Ways are sets of points that describe shapes of buildings, roads etc. it is generally an in depth distinguishing description of node points.
  • To start the analysis process with, we only need two details: location and radius.
    • Location is expressed in geographic coordinates, namely latitude and longitude
    • In case you start with an address or a name of a place, you’ll need to perform a process called geocoding first, i.e. changing it to geographic coordinates.
  • We will generally be interested in nodes (especially with tags) rather than ways because nodes are usually enough when it comes to counting buildings.
  • Counting by category: you can also count by categories using Map Features which are identified as;
    • Categories (keys) and sub-categories (values) and using them we can filter the nodes based on which buildings we’re interested in 
    • Examples; building = retail’, ‘building = supermarket’ , ‘healthcare = pharmacy’, “amenity”=”restaurant”

Noteworthy for Africa on How to Count Houses on Map:

  • Limitation for Africa : Insufficient or no well defined data about their cities, nodes and ways points.
  • Counting of houses in most African regions is almost impossible because building or house node data has not been geocoded on Open Street Map (OSM).

Overpass API vs Google Maps Places API (Nearby Search Request)

  • Google API it’s paid (Overpass API is completely free)
  • it only supports very few categories of places, significantly less than Overpass (it can be partially solved by using correct keywords), 
  • it only returns up to 60 results (spread across several pages), which frequently is way too few to count all relevant places.

How to Count Houses on Map: Example Using Overpass Turbo Web App (View Link)

How to Count Houses on Map
How to Count Houses on Map

Example of Overpass Turbo Query Code

/*
This has been generated by the overpass-turbo wizard.
The original search was:
“building=house”
*/
[out:json][timeout:25];
// gather results
(
  // query part for: “building=house”
  node["building"]({{bbox}});
  way["building"]({{bbox}});
  relation["building"="house"]({{bbox}});
);
// print results
out body;
>;
out skel qt;

Google Earth Engine 

  • Earth Engine GCP
    • A planetary-scale platform for Earth science data & analysis. Geospatial data processing and analysis platform. Powered by Google’s cloud infrastructure.
    • Google Earth Engine combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets with planetary-scale analysis capabilities. 
    • Scientists, researchers, and developers use Earth Engine to detect changes, map trends, and quantify differences on the Earth’s surface. 
    • It involves satellite imagery, your algorithms and real world applications or use cases
    • Earth Engine is now available for commercial use, and remains free for academic and research use. 
    • Meet Earth Engine (Watch Now) 

Insights for a more sustainable world, powered by Earth Engine.

Understand and tackle critical sustainability and climate issues such as deforestation, water management and sustainable land use.

Our Interest in Google Earth EngineDo some house counts to get to understand social amenities resource demands, get to familiarize with the possibilities of how to use it for knowledge discovery and content related to earth science, as well as data analytics projects for good in my community. Also teach others about its usefulness to research.

Notes On Solutions and Limitations

  • The OpenStreetMap solution did not work because we have mostly unstructured data representations of Africa on the map. (Tool Guide)
  • Estimating Number of Houses – A better metric is the number of households that can afford your service/product at a price point and statistical distribution. You could ballpark your number by taking population density and dividing it by average household size to get an estimate of households per area and then divide by area of interest.( Source )
  • Download high resolution households satellite imagery and use a Computer Vision(CV) algorithm to count the houses.

Related Resources 

Port-Harcourt Startup Innovation Seefinish

Port Harcourt Startup Innovation Ecosystem Tour Hangout

Port Harcourt Startup & Innovation Tour / Hangout was a 2 day event to understand, as well as bolster the Port Harcourt innovation ecosystem. The organizers engaged with innovation hubs, work spaces, investors, startups, programmers, media brands, digital marketing brands, technologist, entrepreneurs, business owners, as well as mentees and mentors. The main organizers were StartupSouth and Afrilabs.

Port Harcourt Startup Event Activities

The Port-Harcourt Startup event hosted a series of activities which were both educating and engaging. The main activities were:

  • Port-Harcourt Innovation Ecosystem Tour
  • Hub Leaders Seminar (Starting and Running a Sustainable Innovation Hub) : Watch on Youtube
  • Port-Harcourt Startup and Innovation Hangout

Events Partners

The main events partners amongst the many other associate business and startup brands that attended the event includes;

Innovation Hubs Visited in Port-Harcourt

Watch YouTube Videos of Innovation Hub Tour

Main Speakers / Personalities :

  • Anna Ekeledo (Exec. Dir. AfriLabs)
  • Ikechukwu Uche (SSEAN Investor)
  • Uki Asemota-Osifo (Regional Lead Digiclan)
  • Uche Aniche ( Convener #StartupSouth )

Conclusion

The Port Harcourt Startup Innovation Ecosystem Hub Tour and Hangout thought stakeholders that hubs have to be domain specific in other to create value for the kind of target clients or investors expected.

(Watch on YouTube – Hub 101: Starting And Running A Innovation Hub).

Noteworthy Keys to Building a Startup or Innovation Hub;

  • Develop on “Ideas” that solves a niche problem and can scale fast.
  • Startups are innovative solution providers that develop products or services to solve a problem and scale fast to attract investors looking for quick win businesses.
  • Incubation Hubs are where to go to for mentorship and guidance on how to build on your startup business ideas.
  • Innovation Hubs creates workspace and conducive ecosystem to interaction with like minds
  • Angel Investors
  • Mentor-Angel Investors
  • Venture Capitalist
  • Communities for Collaboration
  • Hub Leaders or Managers

There is an investment opportunity for everyone, take your pick and contribute to society as an advocate, a social entrepreneur or a capital gains investor.

Top 5 Factors that Make Startup Succeed (IdeaLab)

  • Ideas (28%)
  • Team / Execution (32%)
  • Business Model ( generate customer revenue) (24%)
  • Funding (14%)
  • Timing (42%) – are consumers really ready for what you are offering

The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed | Bill Gross (Watch on YouTube)

How to secure your smartphone - Seefinish.com

How to secure smartphone

How to Secure your Smartphone

How to secure your smartphone from being hacked, requires your understanding of a few simple action points as listed here on this page.

Mobile Phone Security Tips (Don’t get hacked)

How to Secure your smartphone to avoid the greatest threats to mobile security such as Trojan-Downloaders and Trojan-Droppers. The trojan threats are especially common and dangerous given that they have the potential to contain a significantly damaging amount of payloads.

The Safety and Security measure to protect your phone

The Safety and Security measure to protect your phone and data are as follows.

  • installing cybersecurity solutions on their mobile devices, like Kaspersky Total Security
  • Create a strong password on your smartphone
  • Do not trust SMS, most mobile malware uses text messages, so users should never respond to requests for credit card details or other private information.
  • Check your browser for the padlock symbol, indications of ‘HTTPS, the padlock icon in the address bar indicates that the sight is secure when entering personal data.
  • Install apps from reputable sources, like the app stores that are compatible with phones O/S.
  • Popular shopping sites such as Aliexpress, Jumia, Konga, Amazon or eBay have their own mobile applications software.
  • Before installing applications software, you must check to see they are the official apps from the company before you initiate a download. This can be done by checking the developer information and user ratings on the download page.

Associated hashtags

#data #cybersecurity #security #developer #malware #amazon #mobileapplications #safety #like

Related Resources on Secure your Smartphone

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Goldman Sachs will Offer Ether Crypto-Trading

Goldman Sachs will Offer Ether Crypto-Trading
Goldman Sachs will Offer Ether Crypto-Trading

Market Insider Logo
By Isabelle Lee

Goldman Sachs will offer ether options and futures to its clients because the investment bank expands its cryptocurrency trading business, Bloomberg first reported.

“We’ve actually seen tons of interest from clients who are wanting to trade as they find these levels as a rather more palatable entry point,” Mathew McDermott, head of digital assets at Goldman, told Bloomberg.

He continued: “We see it as a cleansing exercise to scale back a number of the leverage and therefore the excess within the system, especially from a retail perspective.”

The New York-based bank is expanding from its bitcoin offering after restarting its cryptocurrency trading desk to trade bitcoin futures earlier this year amid a boom within the popular coin. Goldman first found out a cryptocurrency desk in 2018.

 

The 47-year-old McDermott also told Bloomberg that Goldman has plans to facilitate trades via exchange-traded notes tracking bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies, led by bitcoin, have staged a modest rebound on Monday following its massive crash in May when it lost almost half its market price in one week alone.

Yet a recent finding from crypto-asset broker Voyager revealed that 81% of respondents during a recent survey are more confident within the way forward for cryptocurrency following last month’s sell-off.

“Institutional adoption will continue,” McDermott said. “Despite the fabric price correction, we still see a big amount of interest during this space.”

In March, that bank’s COO and president John Waldron said he has seen a rise in interest from his clients when it involves investing in bitcoin.

“Client demand is rising,” Waldron said during a Wolfe Virtual FinTech Forum. “The pandemic has been a big accelerant. there’s no doubt in our mind there’ll be more digital commerce … and (use of) digital money.”

Read the “original article” on “Markets Insider”

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