5 replies to this topic

[hyperworld]

Hi, I am new here so please bear with me if I don't phrase this correctly. We are building an iPad app which features a 3D globe where we currently allow users to see outlines of countries and states by tapping on a (blue marble based) textured globe.

We would very much like to show cities by metro and urban areas as well, in outline form (no streets, just outlines like we show for countries and states).

This is proving to be a surprising challenge. Could anyone here give us some advice as to where/how we can gather this data? We would be happy to pay if someone can help do this for us, but this is a small independent project so we would not be able to pay much. Anyway, I really hope someone here can help give shape to cities on maps as dot's don't really do it.

(I did search the forums but didn't find anything on city outlines)

[Michael Schmeling]

NaturalEarthData has outlines of urban areas:

NaturalEarthData

Perhaps this is sufficient for your needs.

[Hans van der Maarel]

NaturalEarthData has outlines of urban areas:

NaturalEarthData

Perhaps this is sufficient for your needs.

In addition to that there's VMAP/DCW data that has urban areas, though as far as I know that hasn't been updated recently.

[aallen]

Are you wanting global or regional data? Have you looked at any open source stuff. amazing amounts of data out there but you got to find it and then its got to be cleaned or massaged. OS Open data for England and cloudmade has data for the world...

Andrew Allen

[sitesatlas]

You might also want to take a look at the urban component of global land use datasets. I'm not sure if it is the same data on the Natural Earth website or not, but Tom Patterson includes an urban area data layer on his Shaded Relief Natural Earth III website.

[hyperworld]

Thank you everyone, very useful.