Detailed walk through of building extraction using postgis
First lets pull a data layer from of openstreetmap. You can do this any which way you’d like, as there are a variety of methods for pulling openstreetmap data from their database. Check the [wiki] (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data) for a comprehensive list. My favourite method thus far is pulling the data straight into QGIS using the open layers plugin. For those who may want to explore this method, check [this tutorial] (http://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/downloading_osm_data.html). For building extraction you only need building footprints, and include the building tags. Not all polygons are of type building in OSM, so we can download all the polygons, and then filter the layer for only polygons tagged as buildings.
LiDAR data was pulled from USGS via the Earth Explorer site. [Here] (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/ele