More information about the different products

Apps / Services
1

Hello everyone,

When I use the EO browser, I like to understand what product I use. However at the moment, we don’t have a lot of information related to a product, and if you didn’t use it in the past it will be hard to understand it in 10 sec like it should be, with a little panel information.

As an example if I pick a random MERIS day, I will have the Enivsat True Color product, which is just a RGB image. However it’s the only information available, and I would like to know what bands/level of products did they use to show the output (and for any information needed to reproduct the exact same image with SNAP for example).

Same for the Terrestrial Chlorophyll Index, no information on it even if I suspect the bands near the red edge to be used.

I have to play myself with the bands to find out what product is shown, for example the RGB Envisat true color seems to come from the Bands 06 (620nm) - 05 (560nm) - 03 (490nm)

If the information to be displayed is to long (for complex scripts), any “help” panel pointing to the internet / forum / github page where the information for this specific script are would be fine.
But we definitely need such information.

Cheers

2

Hi @madha,

I understand that remote sensing is complex and it is difficult to address all questions like this in one application.

I would suggest you start at our Education page, where we tried to help such cases specifically:
https://education.sentinel-hub.com/

Best,
Grega

3

Hello Grega,

It’s not my problem, I understand fully most of the things when the information about it is displayed. Everybody can understand an RGB image or any classifier. But to be able to understand, we NEED the information about it.

At the moment some products give information (most of the sentinel 2 products give the details of the bands used) but it’s not the case for everything (sentinel 3 for example where we have to guess from what bands each the true color or enhanced version comes from)

What I’m asking for is a source with the complete information for each product, available in one click.

4

Hi.

In EO Browser there is already some information available, however it’s only for the data sources (or missions - ESA calls them missions) and it’s very basic (short description, revisit time, data availability etc.). The description shows up in a popup if you click on the question mark next to the data source name (Sentinel-2, MODIS, etc.).

I have two ideas that try to solve this issue. Because the things mentioned are already detailed in other sources, both my ideas include linking to those existing sources (for example this is an overview page for Sentinel-2 by ESA, with 3 clicks you come to the detailed description of wavelengths in each band etc, although on that page there is no description of how NDVI, NDWI and others are computed and what they mean - this is on the other ESA page).

The first idea is to add the link to sources that describe the data more extensively into the existing popup for data sources.

The second one is to add the question mark icons and popups with descriptions to separate layers in the Visualization tab. The descriptions here could (should) be short and simple with links to sources with longer descriptions.

Is this something similar to what you had in mind?

Additional:
ESA has a website full of information about all the Sentinel missions. NASA also has a website for their GIBS products. It’s a little more difficult to find information about MODIS, I give you that.

I guess my point is that if we decide to include more information in EO Browser, we should use / link to existing sources, not build a new one as it would probably be time consuming and kind of unnecessary.

Some info is also available on Sentinel hub documentation pages about products that it provides, e.g. Modis, Sentinel-2, but it’s mostly just short description of indices like NDVI, NDWI and such (not much duplication with ESA website, but yeah, no link to ESA website either).

5

The first idea is to add the link to sources that describe the data more extensively into the existing popup for data sources.

The second one is to add the question mark icons and popups with descriptions to separate layers in the Visualization tab. The descriptions here could (should) be short and simple with links to sources with longer descriptions.

Is this something similar to what you had in mind?

Hello Ziga, yes, exactly.

For the products that are shortly documented (RGB = band 4, 3, 1) for example, it’s fine and it should be the same for every products. Obviously some products that are more complex like the NDVI, more details will be needed to reproduce it, but giving the information (band 8 - band 4) / (band 8 + band 4) is great.

Then a link to any proper source would be fine, like the one you show from the NDVI, for anybody who would like to fully understand an algorithm. But we should avoid to navigate into different website to find the information about a specific product. A direct up-to-date link is a great option.

Maybe a link to the script page would be the best option, so if I’m watching a Sentinel-3 image, I can have a shortcut to :
https://www.sentinel-hub.com/develop/documentation/eo_products/Sentinel3EOproducts

Edit :
But even on my last link, some information are missing, like the one for MERIS.