✨ New: Introducing Analysis-Ready PlanetScope version 1.0 ✨

Planet is excited to announce the release of Analysis-Ready PlanetScope version 1.0. This release lays a strong foundation for future enhancements. It provides stable metadata and additional delivery options, like direct access to Sentinel Hub through the Subscriptions API.

Changes since version 0.2.0 and version 0.3.0
Several image quality optimizations and bug fixes
Additional resources

What’s New in This Release

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope version 0.3.0 addressed issues with cloud mask boundaries, incorporating extensive fixes to ensure that radiometry in masked regions matches that of clear-sky regions. This improvement is one of the most significant changes in the v0.3.0 release. Both releases also greatly improved radiometric consistency in land areas near large bodies of water. The metadata delivered in the STAC item has been updated to include solar azimuth and elevation. QA Band 3, the number of reference calibration scenes, was also removed as it is not considered beneficial to users.

Improvements to Image Quality

Fix radiometry over masked regions

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.2.0 was the first implementation of removing the cloud masking process, introducing issues. v0.3.0 has addressed these concerns, incorporating extensive fixes to ensure that radiometry in masked regions matches that of clear-sky regions. This improvement is one of the most significant changes in this release.

Fix for radiometric harmonization in quadrants with significant water coverage

A bug was discovered with radiometric harmonization over tile quadrants containing large amounts of water. This bug caused calibration errors and occasional serious blunders over land. Beginning with Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0, average radiometry errors over tile quadrants containing large quantities of water have significantly improved, and the incidence of blunders has dramatically decreased. Additional tweaks to the algorithm improved radiometric harmonization, especially in water-heavy tiles and reduced the appearance of anomalous coloration over water.

Topographic corrections

In prior versions, FORCE validation in regions with significant snow, terrain, and clouds indicated relatively high radiometric uncertainties. Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0 introduces corrections for topography. Running this process significantly improves the agreement against day coincident FORCE data over AOIs with significant terrain.

More accurate reference digital elevation model

As of Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0.0, the algorithm uses the Copernicus DEM for topographic corrections. Transitioning to a more accurate reference should enhance the accuracy of cloud masking and radiometric corrections.

Set pixels with sensor issues to NODATA

As of Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0.0, we will set pixels marked as “suspect” in the PlanetScope scene's mask to NODATA (0) to ensure data integrity in the final product. This change addresses previous practices where these pixels were masked but retained a value of 7, leading to inconsistencies. This adjustment may lead to oddly shaped patches of NODATA values in the output.

Improved inter-quadrant radiometric and geometric consistency

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope creates daily composites of PlanetScope imagery. Previously, each quadrant of an Analysis-Ready PlanetScope tile independently selected one of the TOA reflectance scenes acquired over that quadrant as a radiometric and geometric reference for compositing the scenes. Beginning with Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0, the algorithm now selects, where possible, the same scene as a reference for each quadrant. This results in a slight improvement in inter-quadrant consistency.

Fix a bug that omitted small numbers of pixels at scene boundaries

v0.3.0 of Analysis-Ready PlanetScope fixes a bug that caused small numbers of pixels to be lost along scene boundaries while compositing.

Increase slope threshold for topographic correction

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0 addressed topographic correction-induced artifacts due to over-correction by increasing the slope threshold for processing from 5 degrees to 10 degrees. This adjustment is expected to reduce the occurrence of artifacts and improve the overall quality of the corrected data.

Fix a bug that caused ARPS to miss delivering valid data

We identified an important issue where missing data in one Analysis-Ready PlanetScope processing chunk prevented the creation of the entire Analysis-Ready PlanetScope tile, which is not ideal for consistent data availability. As of Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0, the issue has been addressed, ensuring tiles will be created if data from one or more chunks is present.

Remove seam lines between chunks via blending

Inter-chunk blending is introduced in Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0, aiming to minimize sharp boundaries while addressing the risk of contaminating clear-sky pixels due to differing cloud masks at the chunk borders. The solution maintains cloud mask values during QA tile merging to create an overlap mask that matches the centerline between chunks.

Improvements to Metadata

Removed QA band 3

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0: QA band 3 reports the number of calibration reference scenes. In practice, we've rarely, if ever, used it for QA checks, so we removed it from the Analysis-Ready PlanetScope both to avoid confusion from users and to reduce the maintenance burden on ourselves.

Include metadata from the QA tif in STAC items

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0: Metadata from the QA TIFF files is now in STAC items. This enables metadata-only access, which allows systems to filter data before download. This feature can enhance efficiency by reducing unnecessary data transfers.

Include solar azimuth and elevation in QA tiff metadata

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0: Average solar azimuth and average solar elevation per scene is now available in the metadata. Values for each key are formatted as comma-separated lists of "keyascene_index]", where the angle is rounded to two decimals.

Allow daily deliveries to run through high-latitude blackout periods

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v1.0: We addressed a bug for blackout periods where the sun angle might be too low for imaging. We now allow daily deliveries to run through high-latitude blackout periods rather than returning errors. Analysis-Ready PlanetScope will only provide data only when a PlanetScope observation is available.

Include color interpretation metadata

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0: Include color interpretation metadata in tiff delivery to aid in displaying data in programs such as QGIS.

Fix to band central wavelengths reported

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0: The central wavelengths of each band were corrected in the data’s STAC items.

Consistent NODATA values between cloud mask and scene mask

Analysis-Ready PlanetScope v0.3.0: Changes to ensure that the QA layers (cloud mask, scene traceability mask, and number of references) consistently have NODATA values.