Learning Outcomes
- Identify different types of Copernicus satellite data and derived products available on Terrascope Platform.
- Compare various Terrascope tools and methods that can be leveraged to access and process data.
- Demonstrate understanding of the platform by performing the instructions to access the Copernicus data
What is Terrascope?
Terrascope is the Belgian Collaborative Ground Segment for Sentinel missions.
It
provides easy access
to:
- satellite data
- products derived from satellite data
- services (webservices, time series service)
- cloud processing capacity (Jupyter notebooks, virtual machines)
Terrascope is open and free to use for everyone.
Stop downloading, start using cloud processing!
Terrascope cluster consists of:
- > 3700 cores
- > 13TB memory
- > 6.5 PB storage
...and growing!
You can access all data directly using
- Web services
- Virtual machines
- Jupyter notebooks
You can also make platform independent code with OpenEO.
Terrascope Features
- Viewer - easy access; basic analysis methods
- Webservices - integrate data and products without downloading
- Virtual Machines - your desktop running on the Terrascope cluster
- Notebooks - development environment on Terrascope cluster
...but how do you choose what to use?
How to use Terrascope
Analysis Ready Data
- Converted to usable format (Cloud Optimized Geotiff) Enables easy integration into geospatial analysis.
- Delivery of standard products It allows you to get to work immediately by taking away the hassle of pre-processing.
- Integration into web services You can use Time series extraction service to see evolution over time.
CROPSAR service shows evolution over time, even through the clouds.
WM(T)S allows you to integrate the data in geospatial software without having to download it.
Data and Products
Terrascope offers satellite data and derived products
Scroll down for details...
Satellite data
| Sentinel 1 | Sentinel 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Instrument | Synthetic Aperture RADAR | Multispectral camera |
| Characteristics | X-band, VV/VH polarization, ascending/descending orbits | 12 bands (440nm - 2200nm) (VIS&SWIR) |
| Resolution | ~ 5x20 m2 per pixel | 10x10, 20x20 or 60x60 m2 |
| Revisit Rate | 6 days (same orbit) 1-2 days (all orbits) |
5 days (same orbit) 2-3 days (all orbits) |
| Overpass Time | ~8 AM or ~8PM (summer) ~7 AM or ~7PM (winter) |
~1 PM (summer) ~12 PM (winter) |
| Coverage | Belgium | EEA countries (Europe) |
| Archive | Since 2015 | Since 2015 (Belgium), 2-year rolling archive (other areas) |
Derived Products - Sentinel 1
| What is it? | |
|---|---|
| Single Look Complex (SLC) | Full information of data acquisition (signal strength, phase, polarization) – needed for advanced analyses |
| Ground Range Detected (GRD) | Signal strength, projected - can be visualized and overlaid with other georeferenced data |
| Coherence | Similarity between data takes 6 days apart, projected – can be used to detect changes |
Derived Products - Sentinel 2
| What is it? | |
|---|---|
| Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) | Information about the greenness of the vegetation |
| Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) | Information about the photosynthetic activity of green vegetation |
| Leaf Area Index (LAI) | Information about the biomass |
| Fraction of vegetation Cover (FCOVER) | Information about the extent of vegetation |
| Canopy Water Content (CWC) | Information about vegetation drought stress |
| Canopy Chlorophyl Content (CCC) | Information about photosynthetic activity |
How to access the data on Terrascope?
There are several options available. You can...
- ...download them
- using Terrascope viewer interface
- or using the OpenSearch catalogue
- factor in the time for downloading and the cost of storage
- ...use web services
- WM(T)S
- time series, including CROPSAR, openEO
- no need to download
- ...work with them on Terrascope virtual environments
- no need to download
Downloading data using Terrascope Viewer
- Log in using your Terrascope credentials
- Select the Download tab
- Expand the orange bar
- Adapt the search criteria (also advanced ones)
- Select products, press Next
- Select file types to download, then press Next
- Wait for download to finish
Log In
Enter Credentials
Select the Download Tab
Expand the Orange Bar
Adapt Search Criteria
Select Products
Select Files
Wait for the Download to Complete
Downloading data using OpenSearch Catalogue
- Terrascope provides a catalogue service based on OpenSearch and GeoJSON collection and product metadata.
- The OpenSearch Interface is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard based interface for the discovery of available Remote Sensing data collections and products.
- Users can discover the Terrascope Remote Sensing data using the web service, while OpenSearch clients can launch requests to the OpenSearch Interface for EO data discovery and download.
- Next to the standard GeoJSON format, the catalogue service supports also ATOM.
- For more information, visit https://docs.terrascope.be/#/Developers/WebServices/TerraCatalogue/TerraCatalogue
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 1
Discover all collections:
https://services.terrascope.be/catalogue/description
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 1
Discover all collections
Result Summary:
| TERRASCOPE_S1_SLC_COHERENCE_V1 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_CCC_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_CWC_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_LAI_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_NDVI_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_FAPAR_V2 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_FCOVER_V2 |
| CGS_S1_GRD_L1 |
| CGS_S1_GRD_SIGMA0_L1 |
| CGS_S1_SLC_L1 |
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 2
Find all SENTINEL-2 TOC products (V2) for a specific tile:
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 2
Find all SENTINEL-2 TOC products for a specific tile
Result Summary (limited to 100):
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2:S2A_20180303T102021_32TPN_TOC_V200 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2:S2A_20180221T102031_32TPN_TOC_V200 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2:S2A_20180129T101251_32TPN_TOC_V200 |
| <...> |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2:S2B_20190419T101029_32TPN_TOC_V200 |
| TERRASCOPE_S2_TOC_V2:S2A_20190401T100031_32TPN_TOC_V200 |
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 3
Find all SENTINEL-2 CCC products between 01/01/2020 and 31/01/2020 with cloudcover between 6% and 17% (both included) over Europe
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 3
Find all SENTINEL-2 CCC products between 01/01/2020 and 31/01/2020 with cloudcover between 6% and 17% (both included) over Europe
Result Summary (limited to 100):
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 4
Product download
To download individual products, you can follow these steps:
- Find all SENTINEL-2 LAI products for the tile "32TPN" between 06/08/2020 and 07/08/2020
- Identify the file that you want to download
- Download the image
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 4
Product download
Find all SENTINEL-2 LAI products for the tile "32TPN" between 06/08/2020 and 07/08/2020:
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 4
Navigate to the contents
For each product, you will find the following set of files:
| Quick look | A small sized image representing the product |
| Inspire metadata | An XML file containing the metadata of the parameters |
| Scene classification | Scene classification layer to distinguish between snow, cloud, vegetation etc. For more info [insert link here] |
| Product image | Actual product image |
OpenSearch Catalogue Example 4
Download the products
Downloading data using web services
- WMS
- WMTS
- Both can be used to import the data into GIS or other web applications
Importing image into GIS via web services
In QGIS: Add WMS/WMTS Layer
Importing image into GIS via web services
WMTS
https://services.terrascope.be/wmts/v2/wmts?service=wmts&request=GetCapabilities
Importing image into GIS via web services
Connect
Importing image into GIS via web services
Watch out! Change the Layer name before you press "Add"
Importing image into GIS via web services
Select the date, then press OK
Importing image into GIS via web services
Layer is now available
Downloading data using the time series service
- Via Terrascope Viewer
- Directly, using time series web service
Note that downloading data to your own machine is not recommended. Rather, you can use virtual environments to access the data or process on the fly directly.
Accessing Time Series Service via Terrascope Viewer
The Terrascope time series service allows you to retrieve time series for a number of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data layers:
- Sentinel-1 σ0 ascending VV polarization
- Sentinel-1 σ0 descending VV polarization
- Sentinel-2 NDVI
- Sentinel-2 LAI
- CropSAR fAPAR
Accessing Time Series Service via Terrascope Viewer
Define Area of Interest
Step 1. Login / Step 2. Open 'Areas of Interest' tab / Step 3. Select a point or draw a polygon / Step 4. Click 'Save'
Accessing Time Series Service via Terrascope Viewer
Extract Time Series
Click on 'Show Info' to see the graph
Accessing Time Series Service via Terrascope Viewer
Export Options
Click on the circle button and choose the preferred export option:
Accessing Time Series Webservice Service via Jupyter Notebooks
Check out this notebook for inspiration!
https://github.com/jurgeneveraerts/Terrascope-Notebooks/blob/master/TimeSeriesDemo.ipynbAccessing data using the virtual research environment
- Virtual Machines
- Jupyter Notebooks
Accessing data through Virtual machines
With a user Virtual Machine (VM), a developer or scientist can use a Virtual Research Environment, with access to the available data archives, as well as a powerful tool set and libraries for further data exploration and analysis (using e.g. the SNAP toolbox, GRASS GIS, and QGIS) or to develop-debug-test applications (in e.g. R, Python or Java).
Accessing data through Virtual machines
Once you have a VM assigned to you, you can easily access the data by exploring the 'data' folder on the desktop.
Accessing data through Jupyter Notebooks
Data can be accessed directly through Jupyter Notebooks.
For more information, please follow "Terrascope Application Development" training.