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Hi everyone,

Project snapshot

  • AOI: Costa Rica (~51,000 km²)

  • Plots: 14,000 (1 ha each)

  • Dates to inspect: Jan-2021, Jan-2022, Jan-2023, Jan-2024

  • Tools: Collect Earth Desktop + QGIS

  • Team: 5 interpreters working in parallel

  • Current plan: Insights Platform – Basic (70 k PU/month, 500 PU/min)

Issue

  • With Visual-tile streaming (1 PU/tile) we exhausted the quota in a week.

  • Usage dashboard has shown 0 PU and only 9 requests for several days (possible burst-triggered block).

  • We need to restart work and pick a workflow that won’t hit the limit again.

Options I’m considering

  1. Stay with streaming but upgrade temporarily (Enterprise S or L) and add a caching proxy.

  2. Download all Visual Quads (Basemap Global) and serve them via MapProxy/GeoServer; work offline.

  3. Use NICFI quads (1,500 PU/quad) only in forest zones and Basemap Global elsewhere.

  4. Push quads to GEE and let interpreters view via Earth Engine.

Key questions

  • What workflow do others use when multiple analysts review large visual samples?

  • Any best practices to stay within the 500 PU/min burst when 5 people pan/zoom simultaneously?

  • For Basemap Global, can anyone confirm ~300 PU per quad? (It’s not in public docs.)

  • Is it smarter to take Enterprise S for one month and downgrade back to Basic, or buy top-ups on Basic?

  • If you’ve combined Collect Earth with quads served from MapProxy, any performance tips?

Any guidance, sample scripts, or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

Hi ​@Luis Ángel Aguilar 

The best approach for your use case is to use the Processing API to download the images.

These images would then be stored on a local server so you can access them directly.
It is suggested to download the images and avoid streaming, since streaming doesn't allow for effective zoom or pan control.

In short, the proposed workflow would be:

  • Identify locations
  • Use the Processing API to download images individually.
  • Store the images on a local server.
  • Make the images available via local geoservices.
  • Users accessing the local geoservices via QGIS.

I hope this proposal helps!

Here are some links to resources for you:

Please let me know if there are any more resources/ documentation that may assist you! 


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