Planet Explorer Updates April 19, 2023✨ New ✨It is now easier to preview and order imagery. When you search for imagery, there are three new buttons.Click the X items button to check out each satellite image from that date and make the best choice. Click the eye button to preview the imagery from that date on the map. Click the cart button to add the imagery to your order. You can select and de-select imagery from multiple dates. You can also lock the footprint of an image onto the map to get a better sense of coverage.When you place an order, there is a new option to composite images, which stitches them together. You will receive fewer files and consume less quota. Composite all will give you one file and composite by strip will provide the most consistency (spatial, spectral, environmental, etc). Take a look at the impact of each option on the map to get a sense of what you will receive.You can now more easily use your Hosted Data in other tools and platforms. Download the Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) and pull it into other web applications at no extra cost.Improvements 🙌🏻You can now select MGRS as a format in Settings, under the Coordinate System section. You can also easily copy MGRS coordinates out of Explorer to paste into other systems. The coordinates can be found in the bottom banner of the app. Please note: precision varies by the zoom level and resolution.

Improvements It is now easier to select your time of interest in Explorer, especially for date ranges beyond two months. You can now enter your start and end date ranges as well as select them on the calendar. We have made improvements to Compare mode. You can now see the search field while in Compare mode. If you’d like to search for another location, you can do so faster now. If you try to place an order clipped to a complex geometry, the order fails. We now include a fail-safe in Explorer that disables the clipping option if your geometry is too complex. This check gives you the confidence that your order won’t fail because of a complex geometry. We have changed the defaults when you place an order. Harmonization is no longer on by default. The Harmonization tool is best applied if someone is ordering PlanetScope data from various constellations (for example, SuperDove and Dove-R); this situation does not apply to most people because SuperDoves provide full coverage. The clipping tool is on by default.Bug Fixes Small AOIs now show their area correctly up to 3 decimal places instead of 0 km2. We’ve fixed an issue that led to the application crashing when SkySat items were ordered as Hosted Data.

There are substantial improvements to Quota calculations and Planet’s Terms of Service (ToS) for order creation in the Tasking Dashboard. Automated Quota CalculationQuota calculation functionality is greatly improved for order entry. It is now evident which tasking parameters impose higher or lower quota cost. A quota preview displays costs directly in the Tasking Dashboard. Quota estimates are automatically updated as you input requirements.The dashboard now displays how much quota is used for each order. The information is available in both the order details view and the table view. Used quota is always current, reflecting the amount of quota used in a given order to date.Planet’s Terms of Service AlignmentThe tasking parameters at the order entry stage are now consistent with Planet’s current ToS and the capabilities of the SkySat constellation. The improvements allow Planet to maximize order fulfillment and deliver as many high quality captures as possible.The following parameters apply to all orders:  A minimum duration of 14 days for the Time of Interest (TOI)  The order must be submitted at least 24 hours before the TOI start time A maximum 30º Off-nadir angle (ONA) applies to all orders   

From economists to ecologists, our Education and Research Program enables researchers from around the globe to dive into Planet’s datasets and explore a world of near limitless research insights. And starting today, we are transforming the program to offer greater global accessibility and enhanced user capabilities! Through a new tiered pricing system, we aim to serve more universities from more countries than ever before.With this program transformation, we are also offering our high-resolution SkySat data to our E&R users, a first for a university program in the satellite data industry.  To read more about this please check out this Planet Pulse article. 

Improvements Geometry simplification in Explorer: The Import Dialog is updated to provide improved validation and assistance when a geometry needs to be simplified. Multi-features display on a map and you can easily inspect your selections with a geo reference instead of a thumbnail. You can choose to select or deselect all. If your geometry contains more than 500 vertices or if it contains self intersecting lines, you are presented with simplified and supported alternatives.Enhancement Measurements: Measurements no longer display as abbreviating measurements. For example, 1,500 km2 instead of 1.5k km2. If you were confused by the k abbreviation for 1,000 versus km, we now display full measurements without abbreviating them.Bug Fixes This release fixed an issue when moving Hosted Data items to folders. Now only selected data is moved. There were issues re-ordering past orders that were not clipped. Now you can now re-order without issues.

We've made a few updates so that searching and ordering data is easier in Explorer: You can clip Hosted Data orders You can re-order an order from the Orders tab You will see a pin on the map if you search for a specific address Why clip Hosted Data?When you order Hosted Data, you can visualize full bit-depth imagery in the browser. Now, if your plan includes clipping, you can clip it to your area of interest when you place an order.To learn more about ordering Hosted Data, check out How to Order Hosted Data in the Planet Explorer User Guide.How do I re-order?We heard that sometimes you need to order multiple assets for the same date and place. Now you can easily do that in the Orders tab.How do I find an exact address?Simply type in the exact address in the search bar and you will see a pin on top of it. Happy exploring!

Planet is reprocessing the PlanetScope Archive (all images taken by Dove-R and SuperDove satellites before March 1, 2022) to improve radiometric alignment between bands using a new registration and compositor method, which is already in use for all images taken after March 1, 2022. This process started in late September, 2022, and will carry on through November 2022. This leads to clearer images, and a much better product for performing analysis. Reprocessing will affect the availability of some older images. Many images will be added to the archive due to the improved processing methods, while some images may be removed from the archive as a result of a corresponding increase in Planet’s quality threshold. An important caveat for subscriptions API users: reprocessed images will appear in your feed as recently updated, which may lead to inadvertent downloading of some old images. For more information on this process, and how it impacts subscriptions users, please see this support documentation. If you have any questions about this process, please reach out to support. Before ReprocessingAfter Reprocessing 

Nonprofit organizations and NGOs are mission-driven, high-impact organizations that aim to promote the common good. However, due to extremely tight budgets, nonprofits often rely on publicly available data that is typically outdated and insufficient at the scale at which they operate.Planet hopes to change some of that dynamic.Organizations have been taking advantage of freely available satellite imagery, such as Landsat and Sentinel, for decades. However, imagery at 30m and 10m respectively often does not provide the detailed spatial information required to monitor change at a local level. In many cases, they need daily imagery so they can take action as change happens in real-time on the ground. Clouds also are commonly an issue with publicly available imagery due to their less frequent temporal resolution. The Planet Nonprofit Program strives to reduce the barriers that nonprofits face by providing a customized offering of its imagery and services. Through tiered product bundling inclusive of steeply discounted pricing on PlanetScope, SkySat, and the Planet cloud-free Basemaps, we hope to enable nonprofits to discover the value of high-temporal, high-resolution imagery to help advance their mission.Planet has worked closely with nonprofit organizations in the past on impactful initiatives, such as detecting illegal mining in the Amazon, preserving cultural heritage in active conflict areas, mapping renewable energy, and measuring global carbon emissions. But to efficiently scale and move faster than the problems we have to solve to ensure a safe, healthy planet for future generations, we need to increase the rate of our ability to get Planet products into the world’s hands. We believe Planet’s Nonprofit Program will help us get closer to that goal.  Are you a nonprofit/NGO that is ready to unlock the power of Planet data? Contact the Nonprofit Program!

The Planet Explorer Importer now supports KMZ files to specify an area of interest (AOI).KMZ files are zip-compressed KML files that store map locations that are viewable in various geographic information systems (GIS) applications, including Planet Explorer.

Starting today you can order Planet Basemaps through the Orders API. This release provides several new tools while also simplifying the process for ordering Basemaps from Planet.  If you are familiar with ordering scenes from the Orders API, you will be familiar with this new functionality for Planet Basemaps. Here is a quick highlight of what’s new:Order using an area of interest (AOI)You can now order a Basemap over an AOI by providing a GeoJSON file.  This makes it easier to order imagery over the areas that you are focused on by using standard geospatial data formats. It is no longer required to order by specifying Planet quad IDs.Process Basemaps with New ToolsYou now have access to the tools in the Orders API that process Basemaps into ready-to-use formats.  For example, to calculate indices like NDVI in a single API call, you can clip images to an AOI, merge all of the quads into a single image, and perform band math.Deliver to Cloud StorageRather than downloading a Basemap and then re-uploading it to the cloud, you can deliver orders directly to an AWS, Azure, or GCP cloud storage destination.Note: For NICFI Basemaps users, NICFI Basemaps can not be ordered with the Orders API. The NICFI DATA Program User Guide provides information on how to access NICFI Basemaps.Learn more at the Planet Developer Center.  Post any questions you have in the comments!

We have released Planet Add-in for ArcGIS Pro, Version 3.0.  Version 3.0 is the first version that is compatible with ArcGIS Pro 3.x. There are also additional features for working with STAC metadata and viewing the size of an area-of-interest (AOI) when searching for images and Basemaps.Support for ArcGIS Pro Version 3.0The add-in now supports ArcGIS 3.x so you can upgrade to the latest version.  If you still need to use an older version of ArcGIS Pro 2.x, we also have an updated 2.x version.Ordering with STAC MetadataYou can now place an order and specify to have STAC metadata included.  When you add imagery to the map, the spectral bands are now assigned to the correct color channels for a true color visualization.View Area-of-Interest (AOI) Size When SearchingWhile you are searching for imagery and Basemaps, the size of the AOI is now listed in the search panel.  This helps to know how much imagery is being ordered so you can estimate how it impacts your usage quota.Download the most recent version of the Planet Add-in for ArcGIS Pro!

Planet is excited to announce new details of our hyperspectral constellation, which is being brought to market through a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership with the Carbon Mapper Coalition. This future hyperspectral satellites will be named Tanager, a colorful and visually diverse family of birds in Central and South America, and are designed to deliver hyperspectral data at a resolution of 30 meters with over 400 spectral bands. With plans to launch the first two Tanager satellites in 2023, hyperspectral data holds immense potential to support applications in industries like agriculture, defense & intelligence, energy, civil government, and mining. The genesis of the Carbon Mapper initiative came from a need to use high quality hyperspectral data to locate methane point source emitters at the facility scale to support mitigation action. As part of the coalition, we remain committed to the public benefit mission of pinpointing, quantifying and tracking point-source methane and CO2 emissions, while also leveraging the technology’s other applications made possible with hyperspectral data to deliver additional value to its customers.  Click here for more information.

Tile View Search and Navigation EnhancementsPlanet is pleased to introduce enhancements to the Tile View Bundle experience to give you greater flexibility to explore Planet imagery without impacting your quota. Greater Flexibility to Search for ImageryWith this product release, Tiles are only counted against your quota once you have specified your area of interest (AOI) and selected an imagery product. A 2018 global reference image is provided when you first log in to Planet Explorer so you can navigate around the world to find your AOI without consuming any Tiles. Check Your Tile View QuotaYou can view what percent of your tile view quota has been used in the Account page at any time.Learn How to search for imagery in the Planet Explorer User Guide.Please reach out to Customer Success or contact Planet Technical Support with any questions.

Planet launched a microsite which introduces products and provides industry-specific case studies all in simplified Chinese. Click here to check it out!    

Last month Planet launched a microsite which introduces products and provides industry-specific case studies all in Japanese. Click here to check it out!

On July 13, Planet released its latest upgrades to the Tasking platform, accelerating order fulfillment. Task AggregationPlanet has introduced a new back-end task aggregation system which improves fulfillment rate and optimizes order delivery. Now, multiple point orders are collected together in a single SkySat pass, leading to faster access to the latest data for more customers. Though we are now combining multiple customer’s orders in one collection, you will still only be charged for 25 sq. km for your point orders. Higher Refresh for the SkySat ArchiveTo facilitate Task Aggregation and faster order fulfillment, all new SkySat Tasking imagery is now published by default to the SkySat Archive as soon as it is available. This means faster access to the most recent images in the SkySat Archive. How will this affect you as a Tasking Customer?1. As point collections are aggregated, Planet no longer guarantees North-South oriented directionality.2. There are new updates to the Tasking Dashboard User Interface.  Watch the video below for more in depth information! 

Earlier this year, we introduced a new item type – PSScene – that streamlines how you search and download your PlanetScope data.With the introduction of PSScene, we are moving forward with deprecating PSScene3Band and PSScene4Band item types on January 31, 2023. Following this date, Planet will no longer provide support for the associated item types.If you would like support from Planet to make the change, check out an upcoming workshop on Tuesday, August 23, 2022 to get guidance and get your questions answered.

On March 1st, 2022 we released an update to improve PlanetScope data quality available to all PlanetScope Monitoring, Archive, AUM, and Tile View customers! What’s new? We achieved near-daily global coverage of PlanetScope 8-band data Access to 8-band data through our APIs, Explorer, & GIS integrations at no additional cost Simplified discovery and download for PSScene  Key quality improvements to improve the consistency & reliability of the data See here for a video and more information!