Earth Explorer will be down for up to 50days starting mon, feb 3rd

[TheBadger]

Hi, just a heads up http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov will not be fully accessable starting Feb, 3rd. If you want to use it, get those maps tonight

Landsat 8 Reprocessing to begin Monday February 3, 2014

On February 3, 2014 beginning at 2:00 a.m. CT, all scenes in the L8 OLI/TIRS and L8 OLI/TIRS Pre-WRS2 data sets will be removed from downloadable state.

The data will then be be reprocessed to take advantage of calibration improvements identified during its first year of operation, starting with the most recent acquisitions and proceeding back to the beginning of the mission. Scenes will then become available for download. On-demand orders can also be placed for scenes waiting to be reprocessed. The reprocessing effort is expected to take approximately 50 days.

Details about the reprocessing can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/calibration_notices.php.

[Oshyan]

I think that's just the Landsat data though. DEM (heightfield) data should still be available for example. So basically, don't sweat it *unless* you know you need *Landsat* data in particular.


- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Ah good.
Im still downloading locations like a fat pig though. Being sure to get the data formats you mentioned too, Oshyan. Its already pretty fun playing with providers sites.
And Im looking forward to building up some nice visuals "relatively" quickly, for simple compositing work.

I have to admit it really is a blast being able to fly around all of these locations I wanted to visit in real life. Iceland anyone? Hmmm? How about on tuesday? We can do china this weekend. 

I have been a big proponent of this software and wanting it to grow (mostly for selfish reasons, I admit) But now finally getting this stuff to really start working for me, I want to keep it all to my self. GO AWAY INTERNET PEOPLE! ITS ALL MINE. Mine mine mine. Go suck an egg with vue nerds! THis is mine! 

Ok, Im being crazy again. But it is a ton of fun.

[Tangled-Universe]

Does that site offer 10m resolution data?

I'm still very unfamiliar with satelite data unfortunately.

For a current project I need data of the Lake Baikal region and unsurprisingly it's only in 30m resolution available. SRTM I believe.
It works well enough for distant shots, certainly in conjuction with some WM-based detailing, but 30m still is just 30m resolution.
I got this data by fiddling on those sites, but I can't really say I know what I'm doing

So is Landsat better?
Can TG3 read Landsat natively?

Cheers,
Martin

[TheBadger]

Hi Martin, I cant tell you how good it makes me feel to read you feel unsure  When I hear someone I know is competent say their not sure about something, than I don't have to feel so much like the blithering imbecile that I some times do.  I will just ignore that you simply haven't played with to much, and pretend its just complex for everyone.

I have downloaded only those files that Oshyan pointed out. So I cant use the Orthoimages yet. And I simply don't recognize the file extensions of most of the data in the data sets.

For example, I am downloading a portion of the Salt Lake City area. I got a link to 4 .zips for the data sets and 112 links for the ortho (ortho files as .zips are all in the hundreds of MBs) and are all 1/9 Arc second. (it was a big portion of land). I did notice something that I would like conformation on...

If the image view in the map (of the data service) is quality, than does that indicate a high quality data (low arc number)? Because its may be coincidence, but so far it seems that if I can zoom in really well in the site map, then I see more arcs of 1/9.

Martin So far I have not run into anything that is 30meters. Please give me your Lat LOng degrees for the center of the location you are interested in. I will look too, and perhaps I will gain more understanding of this by talking with you. Lake Baikal is in russia right? I have been downloading from east of siberia all night. I will see if I get good arc seconds for your lake, but I don't know the exact area of your interest.

[TheBadger]

All I get from USGS that I recognize is a "aster global dem" and no indication of the arc seconds. coincidence or not, it seems that I could not get very close to the ground before detail was lost in the viewer too.

elevation is relevant too I guess. If you look at a mountain the data will be better. MY question is, is that only because the surface is literally closer to the camera, or is the quality better because the area is also more "important"? And more attention was paid to a location of high interest? Just curious. My guess would be that its automatic and every inch of ground is treated the same way. But I really can't know.

That lake is huge by the way.
Is this the same data you found?
[attach=1]

[TheBadger]

Ah, your location has declasifide US spy sat data.

The KH-7 surveillance system was a high resolution imaging system that was operational from July 1963 to June 1967. Approximately 18,000 black-and-white images and 230 color images are available from the 38 missions flown during this program. Key features for this program were larger area of coverage and improved ground resolution. The cameras acquired imagery in continuous lengthwise sweeps of the terrain. KH-7 images are 9 inches wide, vary in length from 4 inches to 500 feet long, and have a resolution of 2 to 4 feet.

Maybe try that? It would be older though.
[attach=1]

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks Michael,

At the moment too much to go through here at work, so I'll will read all of it tonight after work.

Thanks for your effort again

Cheers,
Martin

[Oshyan]

30m SRTM is the best that is widely and publicly available for free. Some countries have their own data that they provide, either free or for a fee, others are only covered by commercial providers. USGS will only have 30m data for that area Martin, I'm fairly sure of that (the data you probably already have). There might be higher resolution *photo* data for the area, but not height.

Badger, resolution of available data does not *necessarily* directly correspond to resolution that you see in the viewer/preview, but there is a not-unreasonable corollary in that areas with higher quality imagery are probably better sampled overall. I believe there is a way to actually directly visualize the DEM data available for particular areas (rather than the default satellite imagery you see when viewing normally), but I don't think it would resolve to the 1/9 data anyway. If you are particularly interested in 1/9 data I think there's a page that lists some of the major areas it can be found, but if you just want highest resolution data of a particular area, just select it for download and browse through the available data options for the highest resolution for that area.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Thanks for the info. I guess how they go about things is not really necessary to know. But its at least a little interesting. Sadly it looks like most of Russia is without the kind of quality data you demonstrated in the youtube vid.
But at least its good enough to get a really great start on reproducing a location in TG.