Web Platform

Overview and Demos

Platform Support

platform@urthecast.com

@UrthecastDev

Outline

1. What is an API?

It's an Application Programming Interface.

A "user interface" for the world of servers and software

A way for two software systems to communicate

All around you. Probably used 20+ APIs already today

Enable programmatic access to data and services

2. Why build APIs?

Humans aren't the only user.

24 / 7 / 365 access

Global events don't always happen during business hours

Response times measured in milliseconds

Scalable - serve many customers simultaneously

WYSIWYG vs WYSIAYG

Foundational layer for apps - internal and external

3. Live API demos

Preface:

This presentation is a web application

All examples are making live API requests

Orange links make API requests

This presentation is open source and available on GitHub

API Key and Secret

Before we begin, need to add an API key and secret

3.1 Areas of Interest

The world is a big place

UrtheCast captures a lot of data

Not all data is relevant to every customer

So, while much of the world is beautiful...

You need a way to filter the data

Areas of Interest API:

Define a region of the planet you want to monitor

See capture opportunities from our satellites and sensors

Search our imagery archive for data that intersects

Track events happening within your AOI

Clip GeoTIFF imagery to save costs and bandwidth

Create an AOI

GeoJSON:

{"name":"San Francisco","geometry":{"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-122.49927520751953,37.667516276171426],[-122.49824523925781,37.68137494751297],[-122.5191879272461,37.78726741375342],[-122.48794555664061,37.79350762410675],[-122.48176574707031,37.81114015184754],[-122.46665954589844,37.81439492742207],[-122.46219635009764,37.81005519477107],[-122.40795135498047,37.815751041563544],[-122.3650360107422,37.7761422535397],[-122.36125946044922,37.737598269779824],[-122.33963012695312,37.72320698914131],[-122.36949920654295,37.69821925772116],[-122.38391876220702,37.70012079430599],[-122.38048553466797,37.68137494751297],[-122.36984252929688,37.65909111310584],[-122.49927520751953,37.667516276171426]]]}}
                    

Create AOI

View map of our AOI:

We'll use our AOI in future examples.

3.2 Satellite Tracker

Data begins with the upstream.

Sattelite Tracker APIs enables you to:

Learn what satellites and sensors are available

Query past, present, predicted position of satellites

See historical capture opportunities and 14 day predictions

Access raw TLE data

Examples

Where is the ISS, right now?

Deimos-1?

Deimos-2?

Landsat 8?

Forecasts

When is the next capture opportunity for my AOI?

Every satellite has a different orbit.

Each sensor has a different capture area.

The Sat Tracker API makes it trivial to know when we might capture your AOI.

AOI + Satellite Tracker

When is the next capture opportunity for my AOI from Theia?

When is the next capture opportunity for my AOI from Deimos-1?

When is the next capture opportunity for my AOI from Deimos-2?

When is the next capture opportunity for my AOI from Landsat 8?

Capture opportunities are not a guarantee of capture

How do you know if new data was captured?

3.3 Event Streams API

Event Streams let you:

See all events happening across the web platform

Track activity within your AOI

Coming soon: Subscriptions to 'push' events to your app

Examples

What are the most recent events across the platform?

What are the most recent events for our AOI?

A Scene ID represents a capture from one of our sensors.

3.4 Archive API

The search engine for all of our archived data

Searchable archive of all imagery on platform

Multi sensor - Theia, Deimos-1, Deimos-2, Landsat 8

Search by: satellite, sensor, cloud coverage, sun elevation angle, geometry, area of interest, season, and more

Examples

Archive API + AOI API

How many scenes intersect with our AOI?

Recap:

The planet is big, so we created an AOI

Forecasting captures is hard, so we used Satellite Tracker

Used Events API to know when we capture data

Searched and browsed scene metadata with the Archive

So now let's see this data.

3.5 Map Tile Service

Low bandwidth, high performance visualization of data

Normalized map tiles from all sensors in the archive

Filter the imagery being shown using Archive API queries

Multiple renderers showcase data behind pixels

True RGB, NDVI, False color NIR, NDWI, EVI

Demo 1:

Map Tile Service Renderers

True RGB

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

False color NIR

Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI)

Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)

Application: Drought

Lake Shasta, CA

(Use the up/down arrows to move through time)

Application: Drought

Folsom Lake

(flood control, power, drinking water)

3.6 - GeoTIFF Ordering

Access to scientific data for analysis

Order any image from our archive in GeoTIFF format

Specify any combination of bands

Optionally clip the scene to an Area of Interest

Fast and secure download from S3

Includes flexible license

(Pilot program, email platform@urthecast.com for access.)

Demo

We're going to use an open source Ordering CLI tool

https://github.com/urthecast/ordering-cli-demo

We're going to clip a Landsat 8 scene to our AOI

Generate order command

Data is Powerful

One thing to read in the news

Another to have access to up to date imagery

AOIs + Events = real time updates

Global Coverage

These examples show only small regions of the planet

Use our APIs to track millions of AOIs - simultaneously

Conclusion

Urthecast APIs provide you with the tools to monitor and measure the planet.

... and we're just getting started

Get the code:

https://github.com/urthecast/urthecast-api-presentation

https://github.com/urthecast/urthecast-api-demos

https://github.com/urthecast/urthecast-map-tile-demos

https://github.com/urthecast/ordering-cli-demo