Introduction
This article explains the main access types for images available on the UP42 platform. The access type is very decisive for the outcomes of the geospatial analysis planned by users, so we strongly recommend consulting this guide before building workflows.
Access types
Currently, UP42 distributes images through two access types: download and streaming.
Download
Downloaded images are retrieved in their original file formats (DIMAP V2, GeoTIFF, SAFE etc.) and clipped to the specified Area of Interest. Separate directories are included for multispectral and panchromatic data.
Streaming
Streamed images consist of all web Mercator tiles intersecting or covering the specified AOI. The spatial resolution varies depending on the chosen zoom level. For more information, please refer to Zoom Levels.
A streamed image can only be used once (i.e. each job of a given workflow over the same AOI will always re-acquire the streamed image). This means that users are paying for the streamed image each time they rerun a job.
A comparison between streamed and downloaded images is shown in the table below.
| Features | Download | Streaming |
|---|---|---|
| Image can be reused indefinitely. | x | |
| Image can be used internally. | x | x |
| Image can be used externally (terms and conditions vary per dataset). | x | |
| Image is paid once. | x | |
| Users own the purchased image. | x | |
| Users have access to all the available bands of the images. | x | |
| Users have access to the display product. | x | x |
| Users have access to the analytic product. | x | |
| Users have access to the derived outputs, including pixel values that reflect the content of the original image (e.g. Raster Tiling, Raster CRS Conversion) | x | |
| Users have access to the derived outputs, excluding pixel values that reflect the content of the original image (e.g. Car Detection, Ship Detection) | x | x |