Hi there!

We have been busy over the summer and have completed another very exciting quarter! Scroll down to find out all about the latest Sentinel Hub and EO Browser updates, area monitoring, the next webinar, the winners of our Custom Script Contest and much more.

EO Browser - Summer Updates

In addition to countless small improvements, three new features stand out: the Terrain Viewer, Histogram Feature and Commercial Data Ordering. The first two give you a different look at satellite imagery (one in 3D and one in frequency distribution form), and the latter gives you access to high-resolution imagery by providing a simple and straightforward way to search, order and visualize commercial data from Planet PlanetScope, Airbus Pleiades, Airbus SPOT and Maxar WorldView. To learn more about the other updates and how to use the new features, read our blog post or simply explore and test them yourself in EO Browser.

VHR (0.5 m) Pleiades imagery (© CNES (2021), distribution AIRBUS DS), which can be searched and ordered in EO Browser using the new Commercial Data feature.

Read more     Go to EO Browser

Area Monitoring - Traffic Light System

The overall objective of the Area Monitoring System is to convert satellite-derived signals and markers into decisions about compliance with claims. We have developed a Traffic Light System that turns marker results into decisions on a level of an agricultural parcel: Field of Interest (FOI) assessed and confirmed as compliant (green) or FOI assessed but there is insufficient evidence to explicitly confirm nor reject the declared scheme/measure (yellow). Our latest blog post in the Area Monitoring series provides a detailed overview of Traffic Light System for the basic payment scheme for Slovenia and is full of interesting examples.

Traffic Light System turns marker results into decisions.

2020 Update of the 120-meter Global Mosaic Data Available

Sharing global-scale, analysis-ready (cloud-free and harmonised) data with the rest of the world wasn't a one-time thing when we did it in early 2021. Our plan is to continuously improve and build a multi-year data collection. In the 2020 iteration, we included all L2A bands, added a quality-mask band, and improved the global geometry used for the mosaic.

The collection is easy to use, whether you are an expert building large-scale machine learning models or just an enthusiast observing global phenomena.

Sentinel-1 Speckle Filter Support

All of our SAR users will appreciate this summer update. Sentinel Hub now offers you the Lee speckle filter! You can even apply speckle filter or orthorectification directly in EO Browser. Search for any Sentinel-1 product on AWS, go to advanced settings, and select your preferred processing settings. Read more on our forum and explore it yourself in EO Browser. For more information on how to use the Lee filter, see our documentation.

Units Improvements

The concept of units in Sentinel Hub has been revised. By specifying the units parameter in your evalscript, you can select the physical quantity and corresponding units of measurement for the values of each band.

We would like to inform you that Sentinel Hub will validate the units parameter in your evalscripts starting on November 1, 2021. Requests for bands in unsupported units will be rejected from that day on. This should only impact the requests that already return wrong results, so you should not worry too much about that. We will also use the upcoming month to monitor active requests to see if there are any problematic use-cases. See the forum post for more information.

It’s Time to Stop Processing Satellite Imagery on Your Laptop

If you are used to downloading and processing satellite data on your computer, read our blog post to learn how much more efficient it is to move to the cloud with Sentinel Hub. Using Sentinel Hub requests means you spend less time downloading and processing your satellite data, giving you more time to actually analyse and visualise your results. Start performing your remote sensing analysis in the cloud!

Enhanced Vegetation Index over Cognac, France, on May 28, 2021.

Euro Data Cube Update

We have deployed EDC Browser, a newly developed web application for viewing combined data collections from Sentinel Hub, geoDB and xcube. You can use it to view public EDC collections or order custom data on demand. The application is free for everyone (for non-commercial use), so jump in and check out all the new data collections, ranging from chlorophyll concentrations and ocean colors, to population density and radar data. Don’t miss the opportunity to use custom scripts for these collections as well, just like in EO Browser! Visit the EDC Browser website for more information and start exploring!

Join us at ESA Phi Week! We will be demonstrating the EDC's Bring Your Own Algorithm (BYOA) offering in action. The keynote will take place on October 13 at 15:40 CEST and the side event at 17:30-19:00 CEST. Get a basic understanding of what BYOA can offer you as an algorithm provider or algorithm consumer. After a brief introduction to the offering and how to use it in real-world showcases, this session will offer demonstrations and tutorials on how to contribute an algorithm and how to consume published ones.

Results of the Fourth Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest

Our special edition of Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest – Urban Growth in Africa – focused on monitoring changes and growth of urban areas ended on September 5. The contest was organised jointly with our partners, the Euro Data Cube, the Copernicus EU Earth Observation programme and the European Space Agency. Participants had the opportunity to explore the depth and detail of various commercial data and dense time series over a long period of time available over Dakar, Senegal. See the results here and stay tuned! The winning entries will be featured on our Sentinel Hub Blog in the coming weeks.

The winning Data-fusion Sand-oriented Land Cover Classification script.

Webinar: Ask the Sentinel Hub Team

The next Sentinel Hub webinar - Ask the Sentinel Hub Team - will take place on October 28, 2021 at 14:00 CEST (12.00 UTC). To learn more about Earth Observation and Sentinel Hub, this session will be in a slightly different format. You can already watch the main part - A Short Course on Earth Observation Methods and Data - whenever it is most convenient for you. To make our live session as efficient as possible, you can send us questions on various topics from EO and Sentinel Hub as early as two weeks before the session. To receive all instructions in a timely manner, subscribe to our mailing list for the webinars now.

Also check out the recordings of our previous webinars on EO Browser, OGC API with QGIS Integration, Sentinel Hub Process API, Commercial Data in Sentinel Hub, Custom Scripts, Multi-Temporal Scripts and Data Fusion, Batch Processing API and more. Visit our Youtube Webinar Channel!

Meet Our Austrian Team

Did you know that we also have a team in the beautiful town of Graz, Austria? In close collaboration with our research and core teams, the Austrian team focuses on the development of Value Added Services based on Sentinel Hub products. They will support you if you need tailored analysis-ready EO products, support in moving your workflow to the cloud, or developing your EO-based customer-facing applications.

To get to know this young and enthusiastic group of people better, you should follow their LinkedIn page, where you will find a series of interviews highlighting the different backgrounds of the team. You can also learn more about their services and activities on the team's brand new website.

If you feel you would be a good fit for the team, do not hesitate to send your application through the careers page. The team is always on the lookout for Earth Observation enthusiasts. There you can also find more about open positions in our other teams in Ljubljana, Slovenia!

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendars for our presentations at the following events:

Feel free to send us your feedback via the Forum or social media. We look forward to hearing from you.