Stream Sample Satellite Imagery with the Arlula API

Arlula
4 min readAug 26, 2020

Learn how to access free high-res satellite imagery from our growing sample library with the Arlula API and dashboard

Introduction

In this tutorial we’ll be showing you how to find and download sample imagery via your Arlula account and API. You will also learn how to delete sample imagery form your account history.

The Arlula API gives users the power to query archives of satellite imagery from vendors around the world. In order to help users set up the API and integrate into their workflow, we have provided access to some sample imagery that users can experiment downloading. This will allow you to be confident with the API framework before submitting your first orders.

What you’ll need:
Access to the Arlula API account signup page.

Step 1: Sign in

Sign into the Arlula API dashboard with your account details. If you’re new to Arlula, you’ll need to create an account, this is a fairly simple process that should only take a few minutes.

1.) Visit https://api.arlula.com/signup and create an account.

2.) Once you signup you’ll receive a confirmation email from us. If you cannot find it make sure to check your spam folder.

Step 2: Access Sample Imagery

1.) Find the API you want to add the sample imagery to in the dashboard and click the ‘ ‘ on the right hand side.

2.) Select ‘ order history ‘.

3.) If you have previous orders on this API, you’ll see a list of them here, if not, a prompt. Click ‘ sample images ‘ in the top right, or in the prompt.

4.) This is a list of the available sample images for the API, check back as the collection is extended.

5.) To inspect details of the sample collection, click on the title to view a thumbnail and some details.

6.) To add a collection to your api, click the toggle on the right hand side to the ‘ on ‘ position, and hit save.

7.) The sample imagery will now show up in your orders list, either in your order history on the previous page, or in the api’s ‘order/list‘ and ‘order/get‘ endpoints. NOTE: the order is unlikely to show up as the most recent order, as the sample imagery is stored as an existing order in the platform. On the dashboard you can identify it by the sample chip, and in the API you can distinguish it by its special type of ‘sample-archive‘.

8.) Imagery resources can be downloaded as for any other order, by two methods:

  • API: get the resource ID from the order data in the ‘order/get‘ endpoint, then make a request to ‘order/resource/get‘ to retrieve the resource data.
  • Dashboard: find the order in the orders list, and view its details, each resource is available as a download button from this page.

Step 3: Removing Sample Imagery

1.) If you ever wish to remove a sample image from your API, return to the sample images page (via the orders history page, see above).

2.) Toggle the respective sample collection to the ‘off‘position and click save.

3.) The sample image will now be removed from your orders list and not show up in the orders history page or ‘order/list‘ endpoint.

Congratulations! You can now access our growing sample image library. For more tutorials on how to use our API you can find them at https://www.arlula.com/tutorials/

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Arlula

Arlula provides API access to millions of high resolution satellite images from providers around the world.