EO Browser updates — Summer 2020
Stay tuned for: the pin story builder, the index feature, share pins functionality, a sneak peek about the data fusion and much more…
More than 4 months have passed since we last updated you about EO Browser. We have been quite a bit active during this time and are happy to share with you some of the latest new features and changes.
1. Pin Story Builder
With the new story builder feature, you can create your own stories from a set of pins. This gives you more flexibility about the content, as you can combine different visualizations and different data sources with each other.
To reach the story builder, you need to be logged in (create a free account here) and if you don’t have any pins yet saved in your profile, you first need to add pins to your pin collection.
Now you are all set to create your story. To do so, navigate to the pins tab and select Story.
The story builder opens and gives you numerous options to fine tune your story before you download it as GIF. Modify and add descriptions, show captions or map overlays and decide if you want a legend included or not. Further, it’s still possible to exclude certain pins from the story and adjust the playback speed.
2. Band Index Feature
Did you want to create band ratios with two bands of your choice or modify indices like the NDVI or the NDWI but didn’t want to go into scripting and the custom script option? Then we have now the solution for you!
To give you an easy start with indices, we enhanced the custom option in the Visualize tab by adding a new feature called Index. For the start it allows you to select between a simple ratio or a quotient of a band division and a band sum.
After you chose an index, you can simply drag and drop the bands you want to use into the equation. Not happy with the visualization?
No problem, you got several options to further modify and fine tune it. Via the plus/minus you can add or remove color pickers, which enable you to weight certain ranges of the spectrum. To modify the color ramp simply move the color pickers to the left or right. In case you are not happy with the color ramp you can switch between a few preselected options by clicking on the gear symbol next to Threshold. If you want to include/exclude certain values on top or at the bottom of the scale, you can change the minimum and maximum range by changing the values in the fields.
3. Improved Compare Functionality
Users kindly informed us that it is not easy to find Compare functionality, which is a pretty awesome feature if someone wants to see, what the changes were. Therefore, we decided to decouple the feature from “Pins” and give it its own - more prominent - space in the app. You can now find it among the main tabs between Visualize and Pins.
Adding content to compare is super easy. You can add either visualizations or pins using the new add to compare button (the two small arrows pointing in opposite directions). If you wish, it’s still possible to compare all pins. To do so, simply add all pins with one click on the Add all pins button in the compare tab.
4. Share A Pin Collection
Have you created an interesting set of pins that you would like to share with others simply by sending them a link? With the new share feature this is now possible. Just click on Share while being logged in, select the pins you want to share and create a link by clicking on the Create Link button at the bottom of the list. Once you send the link to others they can import your pin selection into EO Browser with just 2 clicks. If your pins come with a description (see the next point), those will get shared as well.
5. Pin Description
It’s now possible to add descriptions to your pins. This is especially useful if you want to save or share some details about an interesting location with your friends, colleagues or for example as a teacher in class. To add a description to a pin, click on the two down-pointing arrows which will expand the description panel. Then click on the pencil icon to add a new description or edit an already existing one. Within the description you can use Markdown. This becomes especially handy if you want to style your text or include links. With the green check mark you can confirm your changes or discard them using the red X. To collapse the description again click on the two up-pointing arrows.
To get an idea, check our theme highlights (see point 7), for example those from themes: Monitoring Earth from Space or the Snow and Glaciers.
6. EO Browser Pin Repository
The new EO Browser pin repository on GitHub is a place where pin descriptions and images come together. It can be a starting point if you are looking for an interesting location or you would like to explore satellite images for various topics and events. To start, we populated it with our most interesting theme pins (now called highlights). But this is not all! If you have interesting pins you would like to share with the community, you can add them to the repository by following our instruction here.
7. Separation Of Theme Pins Into Highlights
To give your personal pins more space and have the preconfigured theme pins easier to find, we moved the latter next to Search in the Discover tab and renamed them to Highlights. To check them out, simply select a theme, click on Highlights and start exploring.
8. Upgrade To EO Browser 3
You haven’t noticed this yet? Great, because this means we did a good job. On the visual and functional side nothing changed with the upgrade of the app (if you are curious about which version you are currently using, you can find it written at the bottom of the side bar), but behind the scenes we rewrote the whole code to a new foundation. For us this means easier bug fixing and faster implementation of new features and for you it means a much faster and less buggy EO Browser.
9. Data Fusion
The name says it all! It’s now possible to combine different datasets in one image. We are about to publish a whole blog post about data fusion for you, so stay tuned and make sure to follow us on Medium (Sentinel Hub) and Twitter (@sentinel_hub) to not miss it. (Edit: In the meantime published here.)
If you are dying to test it already, you can find it below Custom, Custom script and Use additional datasets (advanced). You can find some examples in our custom script repository.
10. Other Features Worth Mentioning
- All preconfigured themes from the Education mode are now also implemented in the default mode. Make sure you check out all the interesting highlights connected to each of the different topics.
- Social media sharing is back! Share your images with just a few clicks on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
- Once you have drawn your area of interest you can easily copy the coordinates as GeoJSON.
- Simplified search interface for Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data sources.
EO Browser is a free web application for non-commercial use. To access all features, you need an account, which you can simply create here. If you have any feedback or suggestions, do not hesitate to let us know.
