User Guide

Quick Start

  1. Click icon_eotsv in the QGIS Tool Bar or via Raster ‣ EO Time Series Viewer to start the EO Time Series Viewer

  2. Click Files ‣ Add example to load an examplary time series of Landsat and RapidEye observations.

  3. Open the sensor panel View ‣ Panels… ‣ Sensors / Products and change the sensor names

    Default Changed
    5bands@5.0m RapidEye
    6bands@30.0m Landsat
  4. Use the scroll band and the map tools icon_zoom_in icon_zoom_out icon_zoom_pan to change the temporal and spatial subset shown from the time series.

  5. Open the Map View panel, change the map view name from Map View 1 to True Color and set the multiband color render band selection to RGB = 3-2-1 for both, Landsat and RapidEye images.

Note

Use icon_refresh to refresh or redraw related maps, spectral profile plots etc.

  1. Now we like to Optimize the color stretch. Choose a none-clouded Landsat observation like 2104-06-24 and use the map context menu (right-mouse-click) to click on Stretch to current extent … ‣ Linear 5%. Repeat with Linear and Gaussian stretch as well as for RapidEye images to see how this changes the band-specific min/max values in the Map View settings.

  2. Click icon_add_map_view to create a second map view, respectively row of map images. Call it Short-Wave IR and the the multiband color render bands to Landsat RGB = 4-5-3 and RapidEye RGB = 5-4-3

  3. Expand the Map Properties combobox (the first in the Map Views panel), increase the map size to 300x300 pixel and press Apply.

  4. Bring the Temporal Profile panel View ‣ Panels… ‣ Sensors / Products and the 2D page to the front. Click icon_select_ts_profile and select a map location to visualize the temporal profile for. Each selected map location will be listed in the panels’ Coordinate page.

    Go back to the 2D plot page and add a second profile with RapidEye data as Sensor source. Change the expression field to show the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for both sensors:

    Sensor Expression NDVI
    Landsat (b4-b3)/(b4+b3)
    RapidEye (b5-b3)/(b5+b3)

The Graphical User Interface

_images/interface.png

This is what the EO Time Series Viewer’s interface looks like when opening it.

Note

Just like in QGIS, many parts of the GUI are adjustable panels. You can arrange them as tabbed, stacked or separate windows. Activate/Deactivate panels under View ‣ Panels

Time Series

_images/timeseriesdock.png

This window lists the individual input raster files of the time series.

  • date corresponds to the image acquisition date as automatically derived by the TSV from the file name. Checking cbc or unchecking cbu the box in the date field will include or exclude the respective image from the display
  • sensor shows the name of the sensor as defined in the Sensors / Products tab
  • ns: number of samples (pixels in x direction)
  • nl: number of lines (pixels in y direction)
  • nb: number of bands
  • image: path to the raster file

You can add new rasters to the time series by clicking ad_ra Add image to time series. Remove them by selecting the desired rows in the table (click on the row number) and pressing the re_ra Remove image from time series button.

Tip

Click Files ‣ Add example to load a small example time series.

Sensors / Products

_images/sensordock.png

The EO Time Series Viewer automatically assesses different characteristics of the input images (number of bands, geometric resolution etc.) and combines identical ones into sensor groups (or products). Those are listed as follows in the Sensor / Products window:

  • name is automatically generated from the resolution and number of bands (e.g. 6bands@30.m). This field is adjustable, i.e. you can change the name by double clicking into the field. The here defined name will be also displayed in the Map View and the Time Series table.
  • nb: number of bands
  • n images: number of images within the time series attributed to the according sensor
  • wl: comma separated string of the (center) wavelength of every band and [unit]
  • id: string identifying number of bands, geometric resolution and wavelengths (primary for internal use)

The Toolbar

Button Function
_images/mActionAddRasterLayer.svg Add Raster Layer
_images/mActionAddTS.svg Add Time Series from CSV
_images/mActionRemoveTS.svg Remove all images from Time Series
_images/mActionSaveTS.svg Save Time Series as CSV file
_images/mActionAddMapView.svg Add maps that show a specified band selection
_images/mActionRefresh.png Refresh maps
_images/mActionZoomPoint.svg Select center coordinate
_images/mActionZoomIn.svg Zoom into map
_images/mActionZoomOut.svg Zoom out
_images/mActionZoomFullExtent.svg Zoom to maximum extent of time series
_images/mActionZoomActual.svg Zoom to pixel scale
_images/mActionPan.svg Pan map
_images/mActionIdentify.svg Identify map layers
_images/ActionIdentifyTimeSeries.svg Identify pixel time series for specific coordinate
_images/pickrasterspectrum.svg Select pixel profiles from map
_images/metadata.svg About

Map Visualization

_images/mapviewdock.png

Map Properties

In the map properties box you can specify Width and Height, as well as background Color and the CRS of the single map canvases.

_images/maprendering.png
  • Set Center center the QGIS Map View to the same coordinate as the TSV Map View
  • Get Center center the TSV Map View to the same coordinate as the QGIS Map View
  • Set Extent zoom the QGIS Map View to the same extent as the TSV Map View
  • Get Extent zoom the TSV Map View to the same extent as the QGIS Map View
  • Load center profile, when checked cbc, the temporal profile of the center pixel will automatically be displayed and updated in the Profile View tab.

Map Views

A map view is a row of map canvases that show the time series images of different sensors/product in the same band band combination, e.g. as “True Color bands”. The map view panel allows to add or remove map views and to specifiy how the images of each sensor are to be rendered.

  • You can add new Map Views using the addmapview button. This will create a now row of map canvases. Remove a map view via removemapview.
  • In case the Map View does not refresh correctly, you can ‘force’ the refresh using the refresh button (which will also apply all the render settings).
  • Access the settings for individual Map Views via the dropdown menu mapviewdropdown
  • You can use the questionmark button to highlight the current Map View selected in the dropdown menu (respective image chips will show red margin for a few seconds).

Now, for every Map View you can alter the following settings:

  • Hide/Unhide the Map View via the hidemapview Toggle visibility of this map view button.

  • Activate/Deactivate Crosshair via the crosshair Show/hide a crosshair button. Press the arrow button next to it to enter the Crosshair specifications symbology , where you can customize e.g. color, opacity, thickness, size and further options.

  • You may rename the Map View by altering the text in the Name field.

  • Vector Rendering allows you to visualize vector data (e.g. a shapefile). In order to do so, open the file in QGIS. Once loaded in the QGIS Layers Panel, it will become selectable in the dropdown menu. Vector styling will be same as in QGIS (i.e. if you want to adjust it, do it in QGIS). Check cbc or uncheck cbu in order to activate/deactivate Vector Rendering.

  • Under Raster Rendering you can adjust the visualisation of the raster layers. Every sensor, as specified in the Sensors / Products tab, has its separate rendering option section (since band specifications differ among sensors). The handling is very similar to the QGIS style options.

    • Multiband (RGB) as well as singleband rendering is supported. Select the desired mode in the dropdown menu.
    • Select the desired band(s) for display using the slider. In the dropdown menu at the bottom you can specify the contrast enhancement to be used for the value stretch. In case TSV has sufficient wavelength information for the bands, you can choose several presets: True (True Color; red-green-blue), CIR1 (colored infrared; swir-red-green) and CIR2 (colored infrared; swIR-mwIR-red)
    • You can copy and paste styles using the copy Copy style to clipboard and paste Paste style from clipboard buttons (also between QGIS and TSV)
    • Once you specified your rendering settings, press refresh to apply them.

Cursor Location Values

Similar to the Identify tool in QGIS, you can retrieve the pixel information for the images in your time series. First click on the identify Select cursor location button and then on a desired pixel in the Map Views. In case the Map View contains (additional) vector data, location information will also be retrieved for those features.

_images/cursorlocationvalues.png
  • Coordinates of the selected pixel are shown in the x and y fields. You may change the coordinate system of the displayed coordinates via the crs Select CRS button.


Profile Visualization



Temporal Profiles



Spectral Library