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Decoding Ethiopian Abodes: Towards Classifying Buildings by Occupancy Type Using Footprint Morphology

by Daniel S Adams, Taylor R Hauser, Jessica J Moehl
Publication Type
Conference Paper
Book Title
2023 22nd IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)
Publication Date
Page Numbers
210 to 217
Publisher Location
New Jersey, United States of America

Building occupancy classification plays a crucial role in urban planning, disaster management, and population modeling. Traditional methods often require extensive field surveys or detailed datasets, which can be time-consuming, expensive, and may yield incomplete or erroneous data. In this paper, we present a novel approach for classifying buildings as residential or non-residential using only building footprint data. By extracting geometric shape derivatives that characterize building morphology, we developed a high-accuracy classification model employing a combination of unsupervised and supervised learning methods. We utilized open-source data from Open Street Map, aggregating it to create binary labels for buildings based on their respective human use type. Our approach demonstrates the potential for scalability without the need for additional data sources other than building footprints and labels, offering a more efficient solution for building occupancy classification.