Satellite & aerial images at your fingertips!
We have been pushing our platform to make you able to analyse your data in matters of minutes with the power of machine learning and our intuitive UI. However, many will ask: “Where do I get the data?”
In the past, this question would have lead to a cumbersome discussion about the different satellite data providers existing, their resellers and the geographical location of all the entities involved or the complex constraints on the shape and size of your area of interest! Fun!
However, we can now say that these days are finally over. Things have moved in the right direction with satellite data provider, resellers and data aggregator having done a fantastic job at commoditizing their data structure and access.
Still, where do I get the data?
You can access existing aerial and satellite data via our portal: https://picterra.ch/imagery/
You will find there existing data but also the possibility to order new satellite and aerial imagery. We will be adding capacities to this portal in order to allow you to access imagery in the most seamless way and focus on your extraction of information from Earth observation!
Want to participate?
If you know that some data is available but not on our portal, you can add it with nothing more than a URL! We have designed our platform in a way that it can ingest Web Map Services (WMS) or other tile service (e.g. XYZ) for visualization and processing. This was made possible thanks to the Cloud Optimized Geotiffs (COG) format which allows us to stream portion of an image file via an HTTP request. This has resulted in the technical details of accessing COG geotiffs or web/tile map services to be come very similar and has allowed us to design a unique unified processing pipeline.
This means that in our platform by going under “My images” to “Online map imagery” and then in “..Enter Custom URL..” you can simply enter the WMS or tile URL to browse the data and start working with it!
We’ve lost you? Wait, here are some examples of aerial imagery that you can access extremely easily using the Picterra Platform:
- Aerial/satellite imagery as open WMS: e.g. the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland is available, many European countries and cities around the world too.
- Sentinel satellites imagery with Sentinel-hub WMS service
- Very high satellite imagery with Maxar SecureWatch/EarthWatch WMS service
In a series of blog posts we will present you these different type of data and how you can use them with Picterra!
- Satellite & aerial images at your fingertips! Part 1 — Open Aerial WMS
- Satellite & aerial images at your fingertips! Part 2 — Sentinel-hub WMS
- Satellite & aerial images at your fingertips! Part 3 — Commercial satellite WMS (e.g. Maxar SecureWatch, Airbus OneAtlas, etc.)
Stay tuned!
