Working Groups and Task Forces

The Data Working Group’s mission is to create, validate and conflate open map data, apply advanced quality processes, and manage Overture releases in line with specifications from the Schema Working Group.

The Schema Working Group’s mission is to design and evolve the Overture Maps Data Schema and the Global Entity Reference System (GERS).

The Transportation Task Force’s mission is to curate and improve the transportation layer of map data for Overture, including the mapping of roads, transit, pedestrian and other travel modalities. It generates this data in the Overture transportation schema and with a stable linear reference systems (Transportation GERS IDs) for associating data to that road network. It develops models to detect and update the map as the transportation network evolves and develops models for improved accuracy, coverage and quailty.

The Places Task Force’s mission is to provide a complete, clean, and accurate graph of places that exist in the real world to power location-based use cases. We will maintain that database through robust feedback loops that can detect changes and activity based on wide usage of the database across the many and varied use cases within the Overture community.

The Buildings Task Force’s mission is to build the world’s most comprehensive collection of high-quality, open data for building data that can be used for visualization, analysis, and conflation with other complementary data sources. The Buildings Task Force compiles data from a variety of best-available data sources provided by multiple organizations. The Overture buildings are assigned stable IDs that can be used to associate with other datasets to support other use cases, such as advanced visualization (e.g. 3D display) and analysis (e.g. solar potential). The Overture Buildings Task Force will continue to enhanced the dataset in the future by incorporating new data sources as they become available and keeping existing data sources updated.

The Division Task Force’s mission is to curate a complete open dataset for administrative and named localities that can be used in map building and spatial analysis. The dataset will include the best available open data using government, crowdsourced and commercial open data and will ultimately include all administrative and named localities from the national down to the local level. The Divisions Task Force will develop and assign stable IDs (GERS IDs) for entities within the administrative dataset.

The Base Task Force’s mission is to provide the contextual layers required to create a complete base map using Overture data. At the minimum, these contextual layers include land and water. The Task Force will rely heavily on OpenStreetMap data as curated by the Daylight Earth Table, which applies a basic class/subclass schema to OSM data.

The GERS Task Force’s mission is to design and develop Overture’s stable ID system, the Global Entity Reference System (“GERS”). GERS allows a massive variety of spatial data to be easily and unambigously associated with features on the map. It simplifies the conflation of multiple geospatial datasets and the building richer of maps experiences. While individual data task forces will design their own GERS IDs, the GERS Task Force will manage the overall process and develop the process for associating GERS IDS to geospatial data both in the Overture data corpus and for externally-managed datasets.

The Data Task Force’s mission is to manage the Overture release process—compiling data outputs from the different themes, applying advanced quality processes, and delivering on a regular cadence in line with specifications from the Schema Working Group.

The Developer Advocacy Task Force’s mission is to enable users to visualize, analyze and consume & provide feedback for Overture data through guides, tools, training material to increase adoption of Overture Maps.

The Addresses Task Force’s mission is to build the world’s most comprehensive address database, utilizing available open data sources made available by national, regional, and local governments. This includes the conflation and de-duplication of addresses for geographic areas covered by overlapping sources as well as instituting quality control checks for incomplete or incorrect content. The address data will eventually be linked to other Overture data holdings including divisions, buildings, roads, and places through GERS IDs.