Satellite imagery
Process existing free remote sensing
data with MapTiler
Before you started
Different satellites carry different sensors and therefore they vary in provided services. The well known value is a spatial resolution, which refers to the size of one pixel on the ground. It can be increased by pansharpening, a technique of merging high-resolution panchromatic (grayscale) with low-resolution colored images. But satellites with high-resolution cameras covers just small areas and therefore they have long revisit time, which is a crucial aspect for some types of analysis. Some projects require data in other spectral bands, such as infrared for NDVI application for agriculture. The data also vary in level of processing: from raw sensor data to calibrated images with correct location information. MapTiler helps to turn an image into final zoomable map.
Download the imagery
Free data, mostly from NASA and ESA, can be found in specialized catalogs, where users search based on the area of interest, required resolution, or capture date. The most popular satellites with free data in visible spectrum are Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2. They can be found in the USGS Earth Explorer catalog.
While browsing is without restrictions for anyone, downloading requires to be logged in. After filling in very detailed form, you will get an access to high number of scientific data from satellites.
In the Search criteria, define your area of interest either by looking up for an address or by defining a polygon. This can be done simply by clicking on the map or by uploading an shapefile or KML file. You can also restrict your search by date. In Data Sets tab, you can select required satellites. In your case, Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 are the correct option. In Additional criteria, you can impose extra limitations like cloud coverage. Finally, Results shows you founded images and you can switch between results from selected satellites. Each result has a preview and for logged users also download option.
Ready to use satellite map of entire world
Those who want to use already prepared tiles can use OpenMapTiles project, which provides a download for satellite imagery of the whole world. Users who want to build satellite imagery into their websites can use Cloud for MapTiler.
By draging and droping images into MapTiler, setting a few parameters and rendering you can get output in the form of an online map. This can be uploaded to cloud services like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud, but also to your own servers or integrated into your application.
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Online satellite resources
- USGS Earth Explorer provides access to NASA Landsat images, which covers whole world, includes photos up to 40 years old, and other data like Digital Elevation Model
- Snapsat is an easy-to-use browser for Landsat 8 satellite imagery. The results are sorted based on cloud coverage or date, users can compose their own images from 11 bands.
- Libra is an easy-to-use browser for open Landsat 8 satellite imagery. There is simple filter option.
- Sentinels Scientific Data Hub is the download place for Sentinel-2 data, which has spatial resolution 10 meters, revisit period is 5 days and provides data in 12 spectral bands.
- NOAA CLASS is a great source of atmospheric and environmental data from NPP, JPSS, GOES-R, Jason-3, and NEXRAD projects.
- Earth Observation Link (EOLi) is a bit outdated Java program, but provides all the functionality of online catalogues and data from Envisat, ERS, IKONOS, DMC, ALOS, SPOT, Kompsat, Proba, IRS, and SCISAT.
- NASA Reverb is abound with huge diversity of satellite data you can search and download.
- National Institute for Space Research provides imagery of Earth Resources Satellite 2, a joint venture satellite project made by Brazil and China.
- Bhuvan Indian Geo-Platform of ISRO is an Indian project which provides data from IMS-1, Cartosat, OceanSat and ResourceSat satellites. However, most of the images covers India only.
- NOAA Data Access Viewer provides a download place for satellite imagery, land cover and elevation data for United States.
- VITO Vision provides low-resolution imagery of vegetation.
- NOAA Digital Coast is a place to go for free satellite imagery of seashores.
- Global Land Cover Facility provides global vegetation imagery from Landsat, MODIS and AVHRR.
- If your demand is not satisfied by free providers, you can try products of commercial companies. Some of them provides free samples of their products DigitalGlobe Free Product Samples, Geo-Airbus
Process big data with MapTiler Cluster
The processing of large volumes of data can be done in parallel on multiple computers, using MapTiler Cluster to significantly decrease rendering times.
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