Exporting Cloud-Optimised GeoTIFFs

• Products used: s2_l2a

Keywords data used; sentinel-2, data methods; exporting, data format; GeoTIFF

Background

At the end of an analysis it can be useful to export data to a GeoTIFF file (e.g. outputname.tif), either to save results or to allow for exploring results in a GIS software platform (e.g. ArcGIS or QGIS).

A Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) is a regular GeoTIFF file, aimed at being hosted on a HTTP file server, with an internal organization that enables more efficient workflows on the cloud.

Description

This notebook shows a number of ways to export a GeoTIFF file:

1. Exporting a single-band, single time-slice GeoTIFF from an xarray object loaded through a dc.load query

2. Exporting a multi-band, single time-slice GeoTIFF from an xarray object loaded through a dc.load query

3. Exporting multiple GeoTIFFs, one for each time-slice of an xarray object loaded through a dc.load query

4. Exporting data from lazily loaded dask arrays

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Getting started

To run this analysis, run all the cells in the notebook, starting with the “Load packages” cell.

Load packages

%matplotlib inline

import datacube
from datacube.utils.cog import write_cog

from deafrica_tools.datahandling import load_ard
from deafrica_tools.plotting import rgb

/env/lib/python3.6/site-packages/geopandas/_compat.py:88: UserWarning: The Shapely GEOS version (3.7.2-CAPI-1.11.0 ) is incompatible with the GEOS version PyGEOS was compiled with (3.9.0-CAPI-1.16.2). Conversions between both will be slow.
  shapely_geos_version, geos_capi_version_string

Connect to the datacube

dc = datacube.Datacube(app='Exporting_GeoTIFFs')

Load Sentinel-2 data from the datacube

Here we are loading in a timeseries of Sentinel-2 satellite images through the datacube API. This will provide us with some data to work with.

lat, lon = 13.94, -16.54
buffer = 0.05

# Create a reusable query
query = {
    'x': (lon-buffer, lon+buffer),
    'y': (lat+buffer, lat-buffer),
    'time': ('2020-11-01', '2020-12-15'),
    'resolution': (-20, 20),
    'measurements': ['red', 'green', 'blue'],
    'output_crs':'EPSG:6933'
}

# Load available data from Landsat 8 and filter to retain only times
# with at least 50% good data
ds = load_ard(dc=dc,
              products=['s2_l2a'],
              **query)

# Print output data
print(ds)

Using pixel quality parameters for Sentinel 2
Finding datasets
    s2_l2a
Applying pixel quality/cloud mask
Loading 9 time steps
<xarray.Dataset>
Dimensions:      (time: 9, x: 483, y: 620)
Coordinates:
  * time         (time) datetime64[ns] 2020-11-03T11:47:42 ... 2020-12-13T11:...
  * y            (y) float64 1.768e+06 1.768e+06 ... 1.755e+06 1.755e+06
  * x            (x) float64 -1.601e+06 -1.601e+06 ... -1.591e+06 -1.591e+06
    spatial_ref  int32 6933
Data variables:
    red          (time, y, x) float32 nan nan nan nan ... 110.0 131.0 140.0
    green        (time, y, x) float32 nan nan nan nan ... 247.0 248.0 290.0
    blue         (time, y, x) float32 nan nan nan nan ... 99.0 67.0 87.0 89.0
Attributes:
    crs:           EPSG:6933
    grid_mapping:  spatial_ref

Plot an rgb image to confirm we have data

The white regions are cloud cover.

rgb(ds, index=3)

Export a single-band, single time-slice GeoTIFF

This method uses the datacube.utils.cog function write_cog, where cog stands for Cloud-Optimised-Geotiff to export a simple single-band, single time-slice COG.

A few important caveats should be noted when using this function: 1. It requires an xarray.DataArray; supplying an xarray.Dataset will return an error. To convert a xarray.Dataset to an array run the following:

da = ds.to_array()

2. This function generates a temporary in-memory tiff file without compression. This means the function will use about 1.5 to 2 times the memory required using the depreciated datacube.helper.write_geotiff.

3. If you pass a dask array into the function, write_cog will not output a geotiff, but will instead return aDask Delayed object. To trigger the output of the geotiff run .compute() on the dask delayed object:

   write_cog(ds.red.isel(time=0), "red.tif").compute()
   

# Select a single time-slice and a single band from the dataset.
singleBandtiff = ds.red.isel(time=5)

# Write GeoTIFF to a location
write_cog(singleBandtiff,
          fname="red_band.tif",
          overwrite=True)

PosixPath('red_band.tif')

Export a multi-band, single time-slice GeoTIFF

Here we select a single time and export all the bands in the dataset using the datacube.utils.cog.write_cog function.

# Select a single time-slice
rgb_tiff = ds.isel(time=5).to_array()

# Write multi-band GeoTIFF to a location
write_cog(rgb_tiff,
          fname='rgb.tif',
          overwrite=True)

PosixPath('rgb.tif')

Export multiple GeoTIFFs, one for each time-slice of an xarray

If we want to export all of the time steps in a dataset as a GeoTIFF, we can wrap our write_cog function in a for-loop.

for i in range(len(ds.time)):

    # We will use the date of the satellite image to name the GeoTIFF
    date = ds.isel(time=i).time.dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d').data
    print(f'Writing {date}')

    # Convert current time step into a `xarray.DataArray`
    singleTimestamp = ds.isel(time=i).to_array()

    # Write GeoTIFF
    write_cog(singleTimestamp,
              fname=f'{date}.tif',
              overwrite=True)

Writing 2020-11-03
Writing 2020-11-08
Writing 2020-11-13
Writing 2020-11-18
Writing 2020-11-23
Writing 2020-11-28
Writing 2020-12-03
Writing 2020-12-08
Writing 2020-12-13

Advanced

Exporting GeoTIFFs from a dask array

If you pass a lazily-loaded dask array into the function, write_cog will not immediately output a GeoTIFF, but will instead return a dask.delayed object:

# Lazily load data using dask
ds_dask = dc.load(product='s2_l2a',
                  dask_chunks={},
                  **query)

# Run `write_cog`
ds_delayed = write_cog(geo_im=ds_dask.isel(time=5).to_array(),
                       fname='dask_geotiff.tif',
                       overwrite=True)

# Print dask.delayed object
print(ds_delayed)

Delayed('_write_cog-54a5f520-6745-4265-bd08-10031f66d67f')

To trigger the GeoTIFF to be exported to file, run .compute() on the dask.delayed object. The file will now appear in the file browser to the left.

ds_delayed.compute()

PosixPath('dask_geotiff.tif')

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Additional information

License: The code in this notebook is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Digital Earth Africa data is licensed under the Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 license.

Contact: If you need assistance, please post a question on the Open Data Cube Slack channel or on the GIS Stack Exchange using the open-data-cube tag (you can view previously asked questions here). If you would like to report an issue with this notebook, you can file one on Github.

Compatible datacube version:

print(datacube.__version__)

1.8.4.dev52+g07bc51a5

Last Tested:

from datetime import datetime
datetime.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

'2021-04-15'