User Guide¶
Quick Start¶
Click
in the QGIS Tool Bar or via to start the EO Time Series Viewer
Click
to load an examplary time series of Landsat and RapidEye observations.Open the sensor panel
and change the sensor namesDefault Changed 5bands@5.0m RapidEye 6bands@30.0m Landsat Use the scroll band and the map tools
to change the temporal and spatial subset shown from the time series.
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.
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
. 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.Click
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
andRapidEye RGB = 5-4-3
Expand the Map Properties combobox (the first in the Map Views panel), increase the map size to 300x300 pixel and press Apply.
Bring the Temporal Profile panel
and the 2D page to the front. Clickand 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¶

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
Time Series¶

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. Checkingor unchecking
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 tabns
: number of samples (pixels in x direction)nl
: number of lines (pixels in y direction)nb
: number of bandsimage
: path to the raster file
You can add new rasters to the time series by clicking Add image to time series.
Remove them by selecting the desired rows in the table (click on the row number) and pressing the
Remove image from time series button.
Tip
Click
to load a small example time series.Sensors / Products¶

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 bandsn images
: number of images within the time series attributed to the according sensorwl
: 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¶
Map Visualization¶

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.

- 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, 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
button. This will create a now row of map canvases. Remove a map view via
.
- In case the Map View does not refresh correctly, you can ‘force’ the refresh using the
button (which will also apply all the render settings).
- Access the settings for individual Map Views via the dropdown menu
- You can use the
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
Toggle visibility of this map view button.
Activate/Deactivate Crosshair via the
Show/hide a crosshair button. Press the arrow button next to it to enter the Crosshair specifications
, 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
or uncheck
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 style to clipboard and
Paste style from clipboard buttons (also between QGIS and TSV)
- Once you specified your rendering settings, press
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
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.

- Coordinates of the selected pixel are shown in the
x
andy
fields. You may change the coordinate system of the displayed coordinates via theSelect CRS button.