Building type and color definitions – terrax.africa

terrax.africa

Building type and color definitions

Building type and color definition

The available city data is based and limited to features that can be interpreted from satellite images. Our AI pipeline first tries to recognize all buildings of a city. In a second step, each building is classified according to the definitions below.

Building types

Bungalows

Bungalows represent single standing houses that usually have a fenced  compound. The average building classified as a bungalow on terrax.africa has a surface area of 190 sqm. Bungalows are usually placed in areas with lower than average building density.

Zinc

As “zinc buildings” we classify buildings that are likely to have a corrugated zinc roof. From top, they are gray or silver in color. As of 2020, zinc roof based buildings are the most common type of dwellings in African cities. The average zinc building on terrax.africa has a surface area of 125 sqm. Usually, they are found in areas with higher building density than average.

Pools

Swimming pools are recognized as well by terraxa.africa and are usually a sign of a high net worth individuals.

Unknown

Unknown buildings are houses that could not be classified clearly to the categories bungalow, zinc or pool.

Building colors
Redbrown

The color “redbrown” represents roofs that are red, brown or something in between from the satellite perspective.

Blue

Buildings are classified with color blue when they have a blue looking roof if one looks at them from the top

Zincsilver

The color zincsilver is given to buildings which roofs look gray or silver. They are equal to the “zinc” building type.

Unknown

The color “unknown” is given to buildings for which the model is not able to predict with a high probability if they are redbrown, blue or zincsilver.