HOW TO: Create a transmittable "MHT" file that lists the SPOT imagery you want to request for your Planet Action grant.

The  SPOT Archives constitute many millions of km² of earth imagery, most of the surface of the planet, going back in a continuous record for over 20 years.  The 2.5 meter resolution products of SPOT 5 have been accumulating at 6-10 million Km2 per year since it's launch in 2002
The archive is available for free search and query at http://sirius.spotimage.fr
This homogeneous archive is an outstanding souce of information for change studies which require analysis of multidate geographical data, in fields such as regional management and analysis, environmental studies and urban planning, among others.

STEP 1: SEARCH THE SPOT ONLINE CATALOG 

The first step is to use the on-line image catalogue Sirius (http://sirius.spotimage.fr/). You'll have to have Javascript enabled for it to work, and you'll have to have Adobe Flash Player version 9 installed (both free downloads), and you'll have to register first to pick a user name.  We request  that you register to the catalogue under the name
"ESRI – Planet Action" if possible. The SIRIUS catalogue allows searching for SPOT imagery based on geographic areas, dates and other product criteria and identifiers.  (The Sirius Online catalogue contains the millions of square kilometres of imagery acquired by the SPOT satellites since 1986.)

The first thing you'll want to do is set the language using the drop-down box at the upper left. You can select French, Spanish or English.

Sirius consists of a left hand Map viewer window and a right hand search & list window. If you want to see a little video of an example session, click on the "Quick Start" label at the bottom of the screen)   The basic procedure is to click on the various zoom and navigation buttons at the top left of the map viewing window to navigate around to your place of interest, then use the middle set of buttons to draw a box or a shape around your area of interest.  You'll then have to specify a few required search terms in the right window before you can actually run a search.

SPECIFYING SIRIUS SEARCH PARAMETERS:

The two parameters that are required in the right-hand window are the "Image Product" type (under the "Product" menu), and the "Start Date" under the "Acquisition Date" menu. Date format (yyyy-mm-dd) is strict, you'll have to enter leading zeros such as "04" for the fourth or for April.  It will reject single digits.    (You can also specify dates as the last X months, or a specific season or range of months over the past x years, you just have to specify something)

 

DATES:  A good date to begin with is 3 months ago, which will produce a dozen or more results even for the most remote areas if you've selected all products.  Another possible start date is "1986-02-21" which was the launch date of SPOT 1, but because it's been around over 20 years this can produce a mess with thousands of images.  There were 5 SPOT Satellites total, 3 are still operational (SPOT 2, 4 and 5).  Below is a table with the operational times and products. (NOTE: the 10m PAN and 20m MS data represent a continuous record back to 1986):

+++SPOT PRODUCTS AND PRODUCT LIFETIMES SUMMARY:
SPOT 1 lifetime (21 Feb 1986 - Ended 2003)
SPOT 2 lifetime (21 Jan 1990 - still operational)
SPOT 3 lifetime (25 Sept 1993 - Ended 14 Nov 1996)
SPOT 1, 2 and 3 OUTPUT:  Panchromatic  10m x 10m,  Multispectral 20m x 20m

SPOT 4     Lifetime   (24 March 1998 – still operational)
OUTPUT: Panchromatic 10m x 10m,   Multispectral  20m x 20m,  
OUTPUT: VEGETATION Multispectral  1km X 1km, 1 day repeat cycle

SPOT 5  (04 May 2002 – still operational)
OUTPUT: Panchromatic  5m x 5m (or 2.5m x 2.5m),  Multispectral  10m x 10m
OUTPUT: VEGETATION Multispectral  1km X 1km, 1 day repeat cycle

FORMOSAT-2
OUTPUT: 2 metres panchromatic (black and white)
OUTPUT: 8 metres in multispectral (colour) mode
Daily revisit/1-day repeat cycle for either output

SPOT 6  Astroterra (possible launch date 2012)
OUTPUT: Panchromatic  2mx2m 

 

PRODUCT TYPES (Must pick at least one, may pick all)
The product types you can select are:  2.5 m Color,  2.5 m BW,  5 m Color, 5 m BW, 10 m Color, 10 m BW and  20 m Color.  (Please note that the type of product you select will determine how far back the images will be available for.)

 

Once you've picked your dates and product type(s) hit the "Search" button at the lower right of the right-hand window for it to begin its search.  (If there are hundreds of results so that it will take a long time to serve them up and work with them, it will warn you so you can revise your search if you want, otherwise you can get an unusable blur of image footprints and a huge list that will really slow down your browser)

 

The Right hand window also lets you limit by Cloud Cover and Angle of Incidence.  If you aren't sure then just leave them at default.  If you get no images at all for your area of interest you can try increasing the allowable cloud cover, the default is max 20% cloud cover but you can bump it all the way up to 100% cloud cover (for nice scenes of clouds if that helps!)

 

 

STEP 2: SELECT THE IMAGES YOU NEED and CREATE YOUR SHOPPING CART 

When you finally have a successful search, the right hand window will display a list of all the images it found matching your search, with the product type, which SPOT satellite it came from, the date and cloud cover.  There is also a "K/J" number which tells where the scene was located in the global SPOT image reference grid.

The leftmost column of little triangles lets you pop open a little thumbnail of each image and more detailed information about it.

The grey box column is where you check off that image as one you want or one to delete.

The tilted box column next to it is where you can toggle on and off the footprints. This box is colored orange when it's footprint is on and grey when it's footprint is off.

The grey eye in the next column lets you display the image over in the Map window so you can zoom into it for closer inspection.

As you find images you want, you can check them in the checkbox column. Alternatively you can
check images you don't want and click on the "X" button at the bottom to delete all the checked images.  It deletes by drawing a line thru the record.  Once you have your list of desired images
checked off you can then hit the "Add to my Cart" button at the bottom,  and it will take you the third tab "3. My Cart".  (Don't worry, you don't have to pay anything or enter any credit cards) It may warn you that some scenes cannot be added to your cart if only a tiny portion of that scene overlaps your area of interest (You'll have to enlarge your area if that's the case and it's an image you still want.)

Once you are at the "My Cart" tab,   you need to make a few other choices for each image, such as specifying the processing level and the size. For our grants the default is "2A" processing, and "Full Scene" size.  You can also select "1A" processing if you wish.

(Be sure to make a note of the retail pricing of the images you select so that you can use that figure in accounting for the value of this grant from Planet Action and Spot to you. A single image can be worth $5,000 to $10,000 so these grants can represent a significant donation to your group and something to tell your other donors about and to use to good effect in matching-grant challenges!)

 

Once you have the final set of images set up in the cart, you can save all of your work and your current cart to work on later.  SPOT calls this a "Context" and it will save your original search terms, the items you worked on in the "My Results" tab, and the current contents and settings of the "My Cart" tab.   You'll have to be logged in to save a context but it's free and fast.  To save a context, go to the top right of your browser and select the "My Searches" dropdown and pick the  "Save a Context" item.  Make up a name for your search and type it in the "Context Name" field, we suggest using your name and the location because there may be many other saved contexts in the list. Use "Test" to signify that it's just a test and someone can delete it later.  This is the same dropdown where you can also load your previously-saved "Contexts".   

In case you are wondering about those long product ID's,  SPOT uses a unique A21 code for each scene. For example,.: 20422620611021103321X,    is better shown as
2-042,262-061102-110332-1-X    where:
•           2 is the satellite number (scene acquired by SPOT 2)
•           042, 262  are the coordinates of the scene on the KJ reference grid (linked to the satellite orbit)
•           061102  is the acquisition date in YYMMDD format (i.e. 2 November 2006)
•           110331  is the acquisition time in HHMMSS format (i.e. 11 hours, 03 minutes, 31 seconds UTC)
•           1 is the instrument number (here: HRV1)
•           X is the spectral mode (here: X for multispectral)

 

 

STEP 3: SAVE YOUR SHOPPING CART OUT TO A WEB ARCHIVE SINGLE FILE

To submit your image list for grant consideration you'll have to save out your current "My Cart" list in a special format and email it to us.  To do this you need to get to your "My Cart" tab with your final image list loaded up and all the required options selected.  Next you'll have to click on the print icon just below the "Create an Alert" button at the bottom left of the "My Cart" window (see red circle above).  This will open up a new popup that will display all the "My Cart" image selections with the full detail and snapshots needed to identify them.  You'll have to dismiss the windows "Print" popup that comes up because you aren't going to be making a hardcopy of this unless you need one for your records. Once you dismiss the Windows "Print" dialog, click on the "File" menu at the top left of this browser window and select the "Save As" option. This will open up a new dialog window that will let you create a name for this and a file format to save.  You'll need to select the "Web Archive, single file (*.mht)" option to save it rather than the "*.htm" option it defaults to.  Save that web archive file locally, then attach it in your image grant application to us and you are done!.

 

STEP 4: HOW GRANTED IMAGES ARE DELIVERED

Once granted, ESRI will deliver the imagery to you in whatever way can be arranged, often by FTP..