UCSB SPOT Catalog

Update, March 2008: The SPOT at UCSB program has ended. The Catalog is still running and being updated daily, however.

If you're interested in SPOT imagery, you almost certainly want the UCSB Center for SPOT Imagery instead. This website contains only technical information about the SPOT program and UCSB's SPOT catalog.

Contents

Overview
The Catalog
Collection metadata
Browse image archive
SCIE record archive
Implementation notes
Technical docs

Overview

The UCSB SPOT Catalog is a complete, up-to-date, worldwide metadata database for SPOT/Image remote-sensing imagery. The database is essentially a clone of Sirius except for the handling of incomplete scenes: whereas Sirius contains incomplete scenes which must be manually "shifted" to become complete scenes before purchasing (actually, Sirius allows all scenes to be shifted), the UCSB catalog minimally pre-shifts all incomplete scenes and thus effectively contains complete scenes only. In addition, the UCSB catalog groups scenes that are near-duplicates of each other (e.g., the "same" scene as acquired by different ground stations) and selects only the "best" representative from each group for display, thereby reducing the total number of scenes. The database is updated daily by harvesting Sirius; multiple, staggered harvest passes capture both new scenes and modifications to older scenes. Access to the database (programmatic and end-user) is provided by Alexandria Digital Library software. The UCSB catalog also helps manage UCSB's local archive of SPOT imagery and supports the UCSB Center for SPOT Imagery's purchase order system.

The Catalog

User interface

Underlying ADL middleware

Base URL: http://spot.alexandria.ucsb.edu:8080/middleware/
Status

Collection metadata (statistics updated weekly)

Overview
Overall spatial coverage
Overall temporal coverage

Browse image archive

As part of catalog development, we are in the process of acquiring browse images and thumbnails (500×500 and 128×128 color JPEGs, respectively) for every SPOT scene. To our knowledge, such a readily available, synoptic view of the SPOT dataset is not available anywhere else, including from SPOT/Image itself. The primary purpose of this archive is to support the catalog, of course, but it may be useful for other purposes such as testing image processing algorithms. Contact the page author for access; access is subject to approval.

Samples

Browse image
Thumbnail

Statistics (updated monthly)

Number of scenes: 15,206,992 as of 2008-08-02
Total size: 2,479 GB

SCIE record archive

Analogous to the browse image archive, we have acquired SCIE-format metadata records for every SPOT scene. These records are available for bulk download in gzip-compressed textual form. Contact the page author for access; access is subject to approval.

Implementation notes

Architecture diagram (.ppt)
Pricing and availability formulæ

Technical docs

SCIE record format

Current
Old

SPOT Grid Reference System (GRS)

High-level description
Detailed description
Node coordinates: WORLDKJ1.txt.gz [2.1MB]

Cloud cover ratings
Shifting SPOT scenes
SPOT mirror and incidence angles