CEDA Satellite Data Finder - Introduction

Finding the Satellite Data Finder

CEDA Satellite Data Finder

Using the Interface

The screen in front of you is split into two sections. On the left is a side panel with accordion-style expanding elements that contain useful elements for refining your search parameters. On the right is a large map.

On first load the map will be blank. Refine your search using the filters and click Apply Filters. Once you have made a selection, the map will be populated with coloured polygons. These polygons are the boundaries of scenes extracted from satellite data contained within the CEDA archive. Up to 1000 scenes will be rendered.

After this first action, you can pan around the map by clicking and dragging. The map's bounding box will automatically change, and the interface will automatically search for and display scenes within the area. You can also zoom in and out using the controls in the bottom right of the map. The map functionality uses Google Maps, so the interface should be familiar if you have used that before.

Here is a short video which gives a run through of all the main features.

Looking at Your Results

Each polygon is clickable and will bring up an information dialogue when selected. This will provide some basic information about each individual file including the recorded start and end time for the data, the file name, the satellite mission, satellite name and instrument name. An example is shown below:

If there is a quicklook thumbnail image in the archive, this will be displayed. Clicking on this image will bring up a larger image. Quicklook images are not available for all datasets. In order to view some of the quicklooks, you are required to be signed in using your CEDA account at data.ceda.ac.uk

There are also buttons where you can directly download the scene or view the source directory on the archive.

Export Results

This dialogue box will help you export any search hits you may have for a given area. It will allow you to export the data in 3 given formats:

• Raw Elasticsearch JSON documents. This is generally intended for software developers or people who can directly interact with the Elasticsearch installation. This does include an amount of useful raw metadata, but generally it's not as useful as the other options.
• File Paths. This will export a JSON list of NEODC system file paths. This is useful if you have filesystem access to the CEDA archive - e.g. on JASMIN or through another entry point.
• Download URLs. This is probably the most useful option to you. This will provide a JSON list of URLs which can be directly used to download any matching data files.

Clicking the Copy icon in the top right of the results box will copy the contents of results to the clipboard.

Dataset on Tape

If the dataset has been moved to tape storage the download buttons will not be available but there is a link to tell you how to gain access to the dataset.