U.S. national categorical mapping of building heights by block group from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data

This dataset is a categorical mapping of estimated mean building heights, by Census block group, in shapefile format for the conterminous United States. The data were derived from the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which collected first return (top of canopy and buildings) radar data at 30-m resolution in February, 2000 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor. These data were processed here to estimate building heights nationally, and then aggregated to block group boundaries. The block groups were then categorized into six classes, ranging from Low to Very High, based on the mean and standard deviation breakpoints of the data. The data were evaluated in several ways, to include comparing them to a reference dataset of 85,000 buildings for the city of San Francisco for accuracy assessment and to provide contextual definitions for the categories.

本数据集为美国本土范围内按普查区块组（Census block group）划分的估算平均建筑高度分类映射成果，格式为形状文件（shapefile）。该数据源自美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的航天飞机雷达地形测绘任务，该任务于2000年2月由“奋进号”航天飞机搭载，以30米分辨率采集了首次回波（林冠与建筑顶部）雷达数据。研究人员对这些数据进行处理以估算全美建筑平均高度，随后将结果聚合至普查区块组边界范围内。基于数据集的均值与标准差断点，研究人员将普查区块组划分为六个等级，范围从“低”至“极高”。本数据集通过多种方式开展了评估工作：包括与旧金山市85000栋建筑的参考数据集进行对比以完成精度评估，同时为各分类提供上下文语境定义。