Sentinelsat Documentation

Release 0.12.2

Marcel Wille, Kersten Clauss

Jun 20, 2018

 Contents

1 Contents 3
1.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Command Line Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Python API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Known errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.5 Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.6 Indices and tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Python Module Index 27

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Sentinelsat makes searching, downloading and retrieving the metadata of Sentinel satellite images from the Copernicus
Open Access Hub easy.
It offers an easy-to-use command line interface

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -g <search_polygon.geojson> --sentinel 2 --cloud

˓→30

and a powerful Python API.

from sentinelsat import SentinelAPI, read_geojson, geojson_to_wkt

api = SentinelAPI('user', 'password')

footprint = geojson_to_wkt(read_geojson('search_polygon.geojson'))
products = api.query(footprint,
producttype='SLC',
orbitdirection='ASCENDING')
api.download_all(products)

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2 Contents
 CHAPTER 1

Contents

1.1 Installation

Install sentinelsat through pip:

pip install sentinelsat

1.1.1 Tests

To run the tests on sentinelsat:

git clone https://github.com/sentinelsat/sentinelsat.git

cd sentinelsat
pip install -e .[test]
py.test -v

By default, prerecorded responses to Copernicus Open Access Hub queries are used to not be affected by its downtime.
To allow the tests to run actual queries against Copernicus Open Access Hub set the environment variables

export SENTINEL_USER=<your scihub username>

export SENTINEL_PASSWORD=<your scihub password>

and add --vcr disable to py.test arguments. To update the recordings use either --vcr record_new or
--vcr reset.

1.1.2 Supported Python versions

Sentinelsat has been tested with Python versions 2.7 and 3.4+. Earlier Python 3 versions are expected to work as well
as long as the dependencies are fulfilled.

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1.1.3 Optional dependencies

The convenience functions to_dataframe() and to_geodataframe() require pandas and/or geopandas
to be present.

1.2 Command Line Interface

Sentinelsat provides a CLI sentinelsat to query and download multiple or single images.

1.2.1 Quickstart

A basic search query consists of a search polygon as well as the username and password to access the Copernicus
Open Access Hub.

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -g <geojson>

For convenience and added security you can set the username, password and DHuS URL as environment variables and
omit their entry on the command line.

export DHUS_USER="<user>"
export DHUS_PASSWORD="<password>"
export DHUS_URL="<api_url>"

sentinelsat -g <geojson>

Search areas are provided as GeoJSON polygons, which can be created with QGIS or geojson.io. If you do not specify
a start and end date only products published in the last 24 hours will be queried.
Start and end dates refer to the acquisition date given by the beginPosition of the products, i.e. the start of the
acquisition time.

Sentinel-1

Search and download all Sentinel-1 scenes of type SLC over a search polygon, in descending orbit for the year 2015.

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -g <search_polygon.geojson> -s 20150101 -e

˓→20151231 -d \

--producttype SLC -q "orbitdirection=Descending" \

--url "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus"

Download a single Sentinel-1 GRDH scene covering Santa Claus Village in Finland on Christmas Eve 2015.

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -d --uuid a9048d1d-fea6-4df8-bedd-7bcb212be12e

or by using its filename

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -d --name S1A_EW_GRDM_1SDH_20151224T154142_

˓→20151224T154207_009186_00D3B0_C71E

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Sentinel-2

Search and download Sentinel-2 scenes for January 2016 with a maximum cloud cover of 40%.

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -g <search_polygon.geojson> -s 20160101 -e

˓→20160131 --sentinel 2 --cloud 40 -d

Download all Sentinel-2 scenes published in the last 24 hours.

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> -g <search_polygon.geojson> --sentinel 2 -d

1.2.2 sentinelsat

sentinelsat -u <user> -p <password> [OPTIONS]

Options:

-u –user TEXT Username [required] (or environment variable DHUS_USER)

-p –pass- TEXT Password [required] (or environment variable DHUS_PASSWORD)
word
–url TEXT Define another API URL. Default URL is ‘https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/’.
-s –start TEXT Start date of the query in the format YYYYMMDD.
-e –end TEXT End date of the query in the format YYYYMMDD.
-g –geom- PATH Search area geometry as GeoJSON file.
etry
–uuid TEXT Select a specific product UUID instead of a query. Multiple UUIDs can separated by
commas.
–name TEXT Select specific product(s) by filename. Supports wildcards.
–sen- Limit search to a Sentinel satellite (constellation).
tinel
–instru- Limit search to a specific instrument on a Sentinel satellite.
ment
–pro- Limit search to a Sentinel product type. List of valid product types can be found under
duct- producttype here.
type
-c –cloud INT Maximum cloud cover in percent. (requires –sentinel to be 2 or 3)
-o –order- TEXT Comma-separated list of keywords to order the result by. Prefix ‘-‘ for descending order.
by
-l –limit INT Maximum number of results to return. Defaults to no limit.
-d –down- Download all results of the query.
load
–path PATH Set the path where the files will be saved.
-q –query TEXT Extra search keywords you want to use in the query. Separate keywords with comma.
Example: ‘producttype=GRD,polarisationmode=HH’.
-f –foot- Create geojson file search_footprints.geojson with footprints of the query result.
prints
–ver- Show version number and exit.
sion
–help Show help message and exit.

ESA maintains a list of valid search keywords that can be used with --query.

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The options --sentinel, --instrument and --producttype are mutually exclusive and follow a hierarchy
from most specific to least specific, i.e. --producttype > --instrument > --sentinel. Only the most
specific option will be included in the search when multiple ones are given.
Searching by name supports wildcards, such as S1A_IW*20151224* to find all Sentinel-1 A scenes from 24th of
December 2015 without restricting the result to a search area.

1.3 Python API

1.3.1 Quickstart

# connect to the API

from sentinelsat import SentinelAPI, read_geojson, geojson_to_wkt
from datetime import date

api = SentinelAPI('user', 'password', 'https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus')

# download single scene by known product id

api.download(<product_id>)

# search by polygon, time, and SciHub query keywords

footprint = geojson_to_wkt(read_geojson('map.geojson'))
products = api.query(footprint,
date=('20151219', date(2015, 12, 29)),
platformname='Sentinel-2',
cloudcoverpercentage=(0, 30))

# download all results from the search

api.download_all(products)

# GeoJSON FeatureCollection containing footprints and metadata of the scenes

api.to_geojson(products)

# GeoPandas GeoDataFrame with the metadata of the scenes and the footprints as
˓→geometries

api.to_geodataframe(products)

# Get basic information about the product: its title, file size, MD5 sum, date,
˓→footprint and

# its download url

api.get_product_odata(<product_id>)

# Get the product's full metadata available on the server

api.get_product_odata(<product_id>, full=True)

Valid search query keywords can be found at the Copernicus Open Access Hub documentation.

1.3.2 Sorting & Filtering

In addition to the search query keywords sentinelsat allows filtering and sorting of search results before download.
To simplify these operations sentinelsat offers the convenience functions to_geojson(), to_dataframe() and
to_geodataframe() which return the search results as a GeoJSON object, Pandas DataFrame or a GeoPandas
GeoDataFrame, respectively. to_dataframe() and to_geodataframe() require pandas and geopandas
to be installed, respectively.

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In this example we query Sentinel-2 scenes over a location and convert the query results to a Pandas DataFrame. The
DataFrame is then sorted by cloud cover and ingestion date. We limit the query to first 5 results within our timespan
and download them, starting with the least cloudy scene. Filtering can be done with all data types, as long as you pass
the id to the download function.

# connect to the API

from sentinelsat import SentinelAPI, read_geojson, geojson_to_wkt
from datetime import date

api = SentinelAPI('user', 'password', 'https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus')

# search by polygon, time, and SciHub query keywords

footprint = geojson_to_wkt(read_geojson('map.geojson'))
products = api.query(footprint,
date=('20151219', date(2015, 12, 29)),
platformname='Sentinel-2')

# convert to Pandas DataFrame

products_df = api.to_dataframe(products)

# sort and limit to first 5 sorted products

products_df_sorted = products_df.sort_values(['cloudcoverpercentage', 'ingestiondate
˓→'], ascending=[True, True])

products_df_sorted = products_df_sorted.head(5)

# download sorted and reduced products

api.download_all(products_df_sorted['id'])

1.3.3 Getting Product Metadata

Sentinelsat provides two methods for retrieving product metadata from the server, one for each API offered by the
Copernicus Open Access Hub:
• query() for OpenSearch (Solr), which supports filtering products by their attributes and returns metadata for
all matched products at once.
• get_product_odata() for OData, which can be queried one product at a time but provides the full meta-
data available for each product, as well as information about the product file such as the file size and checksum,
which are not available from OpenSearch.
Both methods return a dictionary containing the metadata items. More specifically, query() returns a dictionary
with an entry for each returned product with its ID as the key and the attributes’ dictionary as the value.
All of the attributes returned by the OpenSearch API have a corresponding but differently named attribute in the
OData’s full metadata response. See the DataHubSystem’s metadata definition files to find the exact mapping be-
tween them (OpenSearch attributes have a <solrField> tag added): - Sentinel-1 attributes - Sentinel-2 attributes -
Sentinel-3 attributes

OpenSearch example

>>> api.query(date=('NOW-8HOURS', 'NOW'), producttype='SLC')

OrderedDict([('04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e',
{'acquisitiontype': 'NOMINAL',
'beginposition': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 12, 814000),
'endposition': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 39, 758000),
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(continued from previous page)

'filename': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_
˓→01AF91_46FF.SAFE',

'footprint': 'POLYGON ((34.322010 0.401648,36.540989 0.876987,36.

˓→884121 -0.747357,34.664474 -1.227940,34.322010 0.401648))',

'format': 'SAFE',
'gmlfootprint': '<gml:Polygon srsName="http://www.opengis.net/gml/srs/
˓→epsg.xml#4326" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml">\n <gml:outerBoundaryIs>\n
˓→ <gml:LinearRing>\n <gml:coordinates>0.401648,34.322010 0.876987,36.
˓→540989 -0.747357,36.884121 -1.227940,34.664474 0.401648,34.322010</gml:coordinates>

˓→\n </gml:LinearRing>\n </gml:outerBoundaryIs>\n</gml:Polygon>',

'identifier': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_
˓→01AF91_46FF',

'ingestiondate': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 19, 23, 45, 956000),

'instrumentname': 'Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-band)',
'instrumentshortname': 'SAR-C SAR',
'lastorbitnumber': 16302,
'lastrelativeorbitnumber': 130,
'link': "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/odata/v1/Products(
˓→'04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e')/$value",

'link_alternative': "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/odata/v1/
˓→Products('04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e')/",

'link_icon': "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/odata/v1/Products(
˓→'04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e')/Products('Quicklook')/$value",

'missiondatatakeid': 110481,
'orbitdirection': 'ASCENDING',
'orbitnumber': 16302,
'platformidentifier': '2014-016A',
'platformname': 'Sentinel-1',
'polarisationmode': 'VV VH',
'productclass': 'S',
'producttype': 'SLC',
'relativeorbitnumber': 130,
'sensoroperationalmode': 'IW',
'size': '7.1 GB',
'slicenumber': 8,
'status': 'ARCHIVED',
'summary': 'Date: 2017-04-25T15:56:12.814Z, Instrument: SAR-C SAR,
˓→Mode: VV VH, Satellite: Sentinel-1, Size: 7.1 GB',

'swathidentifier': 'IW1 IW2 IW3',

'title': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_
˓→01AF91_46FF',

'uuid': '04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e'}),
...

OData example

Only the most basic information available from the OData API is returned by default, if full=True is not set. The
full metadata query response is quite large and not always nrequired, so it is not requested by default.

>>> api.get_product_odata('04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e')
{'date': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 12, 814000),
'footprint': 'POLYGON((34.322010 0.401648,36.540989 0.876987,36.884121 -0.747357,34.
˓→664474 -1.227940,34.322010 0.401648))',

'id': '04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e',
'md5': 'E5855D1C974171D33EE4BC08B9D221AE',
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'size': 4633501134,
'title': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_01AF91_46FF',
'url': "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/odata/v1/Products('04548172-c64a-418f-
˓→8e83-7a4d148adf1e')/$value"}

With full=True we receive the full metadata available for the product.
>>> api.get_product_odata('04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e', full=True)
{'Acquisition Type': 'NOMINAL',
'Carrier rocket': 'Soyuz',
'Cycle number': 107,
'Date': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 12, 814000),
'Filename': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_01AF91_46FF.SAFE
˓→',

'Footprint': '<gml:Polygon srsName="http://www.opengis.net/gml/srs/epsg.xml#4326"

˓→xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml">\n <gml:outerBoundaryIs>\n
˓→<gml:LinearRing>\n <gml:coordinates>0.401648,34.322010 0.876987,36.540989 -
˓→0.747357,36.884121 -1.227940,34.664474 0.401648,34.322010</gml:coordinates>\n

˓→</gml:LinearRing>\n </gml:outerBoundaryIs>\n</gml:Polygon>',
'Format': 'SAFE',
'Identifier': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_01AF91_46FF',
'Ingestion Date': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 19, 23, 45, 956000),
'Instrument': 'SAR-C',
'Instrument abbreviation': 'SAR-C SAR',
'Instrument description': '<a target="_blank" href="https://sentinel.esa.int/web/
˓→sentinel/missions/sentinel-1">https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions/

˓→sentinel-1</a>',

'Instrument description text': 'The SAR Antenna Subsystem (SAS) is developed and
˓→build by AstriumGmbH. It is a large foldable planar phased array antenna, which

˓→isformed by a centre panel and two antenna side wings. In deployedconfiguration the

˓→antenna has an overall aperture of 12.3 x 0.84 m.The antenna provides a fast

˓→electronic scanning capability inazimuth and elevation and is based on low loss and

˓→highly stablewaveguide radiators build in carbon fibre technology, which arealready

˓→successfully used by the TerraSAR-X radar imaging mission.The SAR Electronic

˓→Subsystem (SES) is developed and build byAstrium Ltd. It provides all radar control,

˓→ IF/ RF signalgeneration and receive data handling functions for the SARInstrument.

˓→The fully redundant SES is based on a channelisedarchitecture with one transmit and

˓→two receive chains, providing amodular approach to the generation and reception of

˓→wide-bandsignals and the handling of multi-polarisation modes. One keyfeature is

˓→the implementation of the Flexible Dynamic BlockAdaptive Quantisation (FD-BAQ) data

˓→compression concept, whichallows an efficient use of on-board storage resources and

˓→minimisesdownlink times.',

'Instrument mode': 'IW',

'Instrument name': 'Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-band)',
'Instrument swath': 'IW1 IW2 IW3',
'JTS footprint': 'POLYGON ((34.322010 0.401648,36.540989 0.876987,36.884121 -0.
˓→747357,34.664474 -1.227940,34.322010 0.401648))',

'Launch date': 'April 3rd, 2014',

'Mission datatake id': 110481,
'Mission type': 'Earth observation',
'Mode': 'IW',
'NSSDC identifier': '2014-016A',
'Operator': 'European Space Agency',
'Orbit number (start)': 16302,
'Orbit number (stop)': 16302,
'Pass direction': 'ASCENDING',
'Phase identifier': 1,
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'Polarisation': 'VV VH',
'Product class': 'S',
'Product class description': 'SAR Standard L1 Product',
'Product composition': 'Slice',
'Product level': 'L1',
'Product type': 'SLC',
'Relative orbit (start)': 130,
'Relative orbit (stop)': 130,
'Satellite': 'Sentinel-1',
'Satellite description': '<a target="_blank" href="https://sentinel.esa.int/web/
˓→sentinel/missions/sentinel-1">https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions/

˓→sentinel-1</a>',

'Satellite name': 'Sentinel-1',

'Satellite number': 'A',
'Sensing start': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 12, 814000),
'Sensing stop': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 39, 758000),
'Size': '7.1 GB',
'Slice number': 8,
'Start relative orbit number': 130,
'Status': 'ARCHIVED',
'Stop relative orbit number': 130,
'Timeliness Category': 'Fast-24h',
'date': datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 25, 15, 56, 12, 814000),
'footprint': 'POLYGON((34.322010 0.401648,36.540989 0.876987,36.884121 -0.747357,34.
˓→664474 -1.227940,34.322010 0.401648))',

'id': '04548172-c64a-418f-8e83-7a4d148adf1e',
'md5': 'E5855D1C974171D33EE4BC08B9D221AE',
'size': 4633501134,
'title': 'S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20170425T155612_20170425T155639_016302_01AF91_46FF',
'url': "https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/odata/v1/Products('04548172-c64a-418f-
˓→8e83-7a4d148adf1e')/$value"}

1.3.4 Logging

Sentinelsat logs to sentinelsat and the API to sentinelsat.SentinelAPI.

There is no predefined logging handler, so in order to have your script print the log messages, either use logging.
baseConfig

import logging

logging.basicConfig(format='%(message)s', level='INFO')

or add a custom handler for sentinelsat (as implemented in cli.py)

import logging

logger = logging.getLogger('sentinelsat')
logger.setLevel('INFO')

h = logging.StreamHandler()
h.setLevel('INFO')
fmt = logging.Formatter('%(message)s')
h.setFormatter(fmt)
logger.addHandler(h)

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1.3.5 More Examples

Search Sentinel 2 by tile

To search for recent Sentinel 2 imagery by MGRS tile, use the tileid parameter:

from collections import OrderedDict

from sentinelsat import SentinelAPI

api = SentinelAPI('user', 'password')

tiles = ['33VUC', '33UUB']

query_kwargs = {
'platformname': 'Sentinel-2',
'producttype': 'S2MSI1C',
'date': ('NOW-14DAYS', 'NOW')}

products = OrderedDict()
for tile in tiles:
kw = query_kwargs.copy()
kw['tileid'] = tile # products after 2017-03-31
pp = api.query(**kw)
products.update(pp)

api.download_all(products)

NB: The tileid parameter only works for products from April 2017 onward due to missing metadata in SciHub’s DHuS
catalogue. Before that, but only from December 2016 onward (i.e. for single-tile products), you can use a filename
pattern instead:

kw['filename'] = '*_T{}_*'.format(tile) # products after 2016-12-01

1.3.6 API

class sentinelsat.SentinelAPI(user, password, api_url=’https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub/’,

show_progressbars=True)
Class to connect to Copernicus Open Access Hub, search and download imagery.
Parameters
user [string] username for DataHub
password [string] password for DataHub
api_url [string, optional] URL of the DataHub defaults to ‘https://scihub.copernicus.eu/apihub’
show_progressbars [bool] Whether progressbars should be shown or not, e.g. during down-
load. Defaults to True.
Attributes
session [requests.Session object] Session to connect to DataHub
api_url [str] URL to the DataHub
page_size [int] number of results per query page current value: 100 (maximum allowed on
ApiHub)

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Methods

check_files([paths, ids, directory, delete]) Verify the integrity of product files on disk.
check_query_length(query) Determine whether a query to the OpenSearch API
is too long.
count([area, date, raw, area_relation]) Get the number of products matching a query.
download(id[, directory_path, checksum]) Download a product.
download_all(products[, directory_path, . . . ]) Download a list of products.
format_query([area, date, raw, area_relation]) Create OpenSearch API query string
get_product_odata(id[, full]) Access OData API to get info about a product.
get_products_size(products) Return the total file size in GB of all products in the
OpenSearch response
query([area, date, raw, area_relation, . . . ]) Query the OpenSearch API with the coordinates of
an area, a date interval and any other search key-
words accepted by the API.
query_raw(query[, order_by, limit, offset]) Do a full-text query on the OpenSearch API using
the format specified in https://scihub.copernicus.eu/
twiki/do/view/SciHubUserGuide/3FullTextSearch
to_dataframe(products) Return the products from a query response as a Pan-
das DataFrame with the values in their appropriate
Python types.
to_geodataframe(products) Return the products from a query response as a
GeoPandas GeoDataFrame with the values in their
appropriate Python types.
to_geojson(products) Return the products from a query response as a Geo-
JSON with the values in their appropriate Python
types.

check_files(paths=None, ids=None, directory=None, delete=False)

Verify the integrity of product files on disk.
Integrity is checked by comparing the size and checksum of the file with the respective values on the server.
The input can be a list of products to check or a list of IDs and a directory.
In cases where multiple products with different IDs exist on the server for given product name, the file is
considered to be correct if any of them matches the file size and checksum. A warning is logged in such
situations.
The corrupt products’ OData info is included in the return value to make it easier to re-download the
products, if necessary.
Parameters
paths [list[string]] List of product file paths.
ids [list[string]] List of product IDs.
directory [string] Directory where the files are located, if checking based on product IDs.
delete [bool] Whether to delete corrupt products. Defaults to False.
Returns
dict[str, list[dict]] A dictionary listing the invalid or missing files. The dictionary maps the
corrupt file paths to a list of OData dictionaries of matching products on the server (as
returned by SentinelAPI.get_product_odata()).

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static check_query_length(query)
Determine whether a query to the OpenSearch API is too long.
The length of a query string is limited to approximately 3893 characters but any special characters (that is,
not alphanumeric or -_.~) are counted twice towards that limit.
Parameters
query [str] The query string
Returns
float Ratio of the query length to the maximum length

Notes

The query size limit arises from a limit on the length of the server’s internal query, which looks like
http://localhost:30333//solr/dhus/select?q=. . . &wt=xslt&tr=opensearch_atom.xsl&dhusLongName=Sentinels+Scientific+D
&dhusServer=https%3A%2F%2Fround-lake.dustinice.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fscihub.copernicus.eu%2Fapihub%2F&originalQuery=. . .
&rows=100&start=0&sort=ingestiondate+desc
This function will estimate the length of the “q” and “originalQuery” parameters to determine whether the
query will fail. Their combined length can be at most about 7786 bytes.
count(area=None, date=None, raw=None, area_relation=’Intersects’, **keywords)
Get the number of products matching a query.
This is a significantly more efficient alternative to doing len(api.query()), which can take minutes to run
for queries matching thousands of products.
Parameters
Identical to the parameters of api.query().
Returns
int The number of products matching a query.
download(id, directory_path=’.’, checksum=True)
Download a product.
Uses the filename on the server for the downloaded file, e.g.
“S1A_EW_GRDH_1SDH_20141003T003840_20141003T003920_002658_002F54_4DD1.zip”.
Incomplete downloads are continued and complete files are skipped.
Parameters
id [string] UUID of the product, e.g. ‘a8dd0cfd-613e-45ce-868c-d79177b916ed’
directory_path [string, optional] Where the file will be downloaded
checksum [bool, optional] If True, verify the downloaded file’s integrity by checking its
MD5 checksum. Throws InvalidChecksumError if the checksum does not match. Defaults
to True.
Returns
product_info [dict] Dictionary containing the product’s info from get_product_info() as
well as the path on disk.
Raises
InvalidChecksumError If the MD5 checksum does not match the checksum on the server.

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download_all(products, directory_path=’.’, max_attempts=10, checksum=True)

Download a list of products.
Takes a list of product IDs as input. This means that the return value of query() can be passed directly to
this method.
File names on the server are used for the downloaded files, e.g.
“S1A_EW_GRDH_1SDH_20141003T003840_20141003T003920_002658_002F54_4DD1.zip”.
In case of interruptions or other exceptions, downloading will restart from where it left off. Downloading
is attempted at most max_attempts times to avoid getting stuck with unrecoverable errors.
Parameters
products [list] List of product IDs
directory_path [string] Directory where the downloaded files will be downloaded
max_attempts [int, optional] Number of allowed retries before giving up downloading a
product. Defaults to 10.
Returns
dict[string, dict] A dictionary containing the return value from download() for each suc-
cessfully downloaded product.
set[string] The list of products that failed to download.
Other Parameters
See download().
Raises
Raises the most recent downloading exception if all downloads failed.
static format_query(area=None, date=None, raw=None, area_relation=’Intersects’, **key-
words)
Create OpenSearch API query string
get_product_odata(id, full=False)
Access OData API to get info about a product.
Returns a dict containing the id, title, size, md5sum, date, footprint and download url of the product. The
date field corresponds to the Start ContentDate value.
If full is set to True, then the full, detailed metadata of the product is returned in addition to the above.
For a mapping between the OpenSearch (Solr) and OData attribute names see the following defini-
tion files: https://github.com/SentinelDataHub/DataHubSystem/blob/master/addon/sentinel-1/src/main/
resources/META-INF/sentinel-1.owl https://github.com/SentinelDataHub/DataHubSystem/blob/master/
addon/sentinel-2/src/main/resources/META-INF/sentinel-2.owl https://github.com/SentinelDataHub/
DataHubSystem/blob/master/addon/sentinel-3/src/main/resources/META-INF/sentinel-3.owl
Parameters
id [string] The ID of the product to query
full [bool] Whether to get the full metadata for the Product
Returns
dict[str, Any] A dictionary with an item for each metadata attribute
static get_products_size(products)
Return the total file size in GB of all products in the OpenSearch response

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query(area=None, date=None, raw=None, area_relation=’Intersects’, order_by=None, limit=None,

offset=0, **keywords)
Query the OpenSearch API with the coordinates of an area, a date interval and any other search keywords
accepted by the API.
Parameters
area [str, optional] The area of interest formatted as a Well-Known Text string.
date [tuple of (str or datetime) or str, optional] A time interval filter based on the Sensing
Start Time of the products. Expects a tuple of (start, end), e.g. (“NOW-1DAY”, “NOW”).
The timestamps can be either a Python datetime or a string in one of the following formats:
• yyyyMMdd
• yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss.SSSZ (ISO-8601)
• yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ssZ
• NOW
• NOW-<n>DAY(S) (or HOUR(S), MONTH(S), etc.)
• NOW+<n>DAY(S)
• yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ssZ-<n>DAY(S)
• NOW/DAY (or HOUR, MONTH etc.) - rounds the value to the given unit
Alternatively, an already fully formatted string such as “[NOW-1DAY TO NOW]” can be
used as well.
raw [str, optional] Additional query text that will be appended to the query.
area_relation [{‘Intersection’, ‘Contains’, ‘IsWithin’}, optional]
What relation to use for testing the AOI. Case insensitive.
• Intersects: true if the AOI and the footprint intersect (default)
• Contains: true if the AOI is inside the footprint
• IsWithin: true if the footprint is inside the AOI
order_by: str, optional A comma-separated list of fields to order by (on server side). Prefix
the field name by ‘+’ or ‘-‘ to sort in ascending or descending order, respectively. Ascend-
ing order is used, if prefix is omitted. Example: “cloudcoverpercentage, -beginposition”.
limit: int, optional Maximum number of products returned. Defaults to no limit.
offset: int, optional The number of results to skip. Defaults to 0.
Returns
dict[string, dict] Products returned by the query as a dictionary with the product ID as the
key and the product’s attributes (a dictionary) as the value.
Other Parameters
Additional keywords can be used to specify other query parameters,
e.g. relativeorbitnumber=70.
See https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubUserGuide/3FullTextSearch
for a full list.
Range values can be passed as two-element tuples, e.g. cloudcoverpercentage=(0, 30).

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The time interval formats accepted by the ‘‘date‘‘ parameter can also be used with
any other parameters that expect time intervals (that is: ‘beginposition’, ‘endposition’,

‘date’, ‘creationdate’, and ‘ingestiondate’).

query_raw(query, order_by=None, limit=None, offset=0)
Do a full-text query on the OpenSearch API using the format specified in https://scihub.copernicus.
eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubUserGuide/3FullTextSearch
DEPRECATED: use query(raw=. . . ) instead. This method will be removed in the next major release.
Parameters
query [str] The query string.
order_by: str, optional A comma-separated list of fields to order by (on server side).
Prefix the field name by ‘+’ or ‘-‘ to sort in ascending or descending order, respec-
tively. Ascending order is used, if prefix is omitted. Example: “cloudcoverpercentage,
-beginposition”.
limit: int, optional Maximum number of products returned. Defaults to no limit.
offset: int, optional The number of results to skip. Defaults to 0.
Returns
dict[string, dict] Products returned by the query as a dictionary with the product ID as
the key and the product’s attributes (a dictionary) as the value.
static to_dataframe(products)
Return the products from a query response as a Pandas DataFrame with the values in their appropriate
Python types.
static to_geodataframe(products)
Return the products from a query response as a GeoPandas GeoDataFrame with the values in their appro-
priate Python types.
static to_geojson(products)
Return the products from a query response as a GeoJSON with the values in their appropriate Python
types.
sentinelsat.read_geojson(geojson_file)
Read a GeoJSON file into a GeoJSON object.
sentinelsat.geojson_to_wkt(geojson_obj, feature_number=0, decimals=4)
Convert a GeoJSON object to Well-Known Text. Intended for use with OpenSearch queries.
In case of FeatureCollection, only one of the features is used (the first by default). 3D points are converted to
2D.
Parameters
geojson_obj [dict] a GeoJSON object
feature_number [int, optional] Feature to extract polygon from (in case of MultiPolygon
FeatureCollection), defaults to first Feature
decimals [int, optional] Number of decimal figures after point to round coordinate to. De-
faults to 4 (about 10 meters).
Returns

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 Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

polygon coordinates string of comma separated coordinate tuples (lon, lat) to be used by
SentinelAPI

1.3.7 Exceptions

exception sentinelsat.SentinelAPIError(msg=None, response=None)

Invalid responses from DataHub.
exception sentinelsat.InvalidChecksumError
MD5 checksum of a local file does not match the one from the server.

1.4 Known errors

I keep getting HTTP 401 Unauthorized messages

This means that the given username/password combination is incorrect. Note that if you created your account recently
it could take a while (a few days?) until you can use that account on apihub and therefore sentinelsat too. You
can go here to test access on the apihub endpoint.

The query fails with HTTP 500 connection timed out

Scihub servers are known to have outages due to high demand, try again later.

My search returns 0 results

Maybe there are no images for the specified time period, by default sentinelsat will query the last 24 hours only.

Anything else?

Make sure to check the issues on GitHub too.

1.5 Change Log

All notable changes to sentinelsat will be listed here.

1.5.1 [master] – YYYY-MM-DD

Added

Changed

1.4. Known errors 17

Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

Deprecated

Fixed

1.5.2 [0.12.2] – 2018-06-20

Added

• made exceptions more verbose regarding optional dependencies (#176)

• CLI username, password and DHuS URL can be set with environment variables DHUS_USER,
DHUS_PASSWORD and DHUS_URL (#184, @temal-)
• added information about known errors and DHuS issues to docs (#186, @martinber)

Changed

• remove hard coded product type list from cli (#190, @lenniezelk)
• Made the function signature of count() fully compatible with query(). Irrelevant parameters are simply
ignored.

Deprecated

• environment variables SENTINEL_USER and SENTINEL_PASSWORD are superceded by DHUS_USER and

DHUS_PASSWORD

Fixed

• Updated handling of invalid queries. An exception is raised in such cases. #168

• Fixed order_by parameter being ignored in queries that require multiple subqueries (that is, queries that return
more than 100 products) (#200)
• Special handling of quote symbols in query strings due to a server-side error is no longer necessary and has been
removed. #168
• Updated effective query length calculation in check_query_length() to reflect server-side changes.
• skip failing tests on optional dependency Pandas for Python 3.3 and 3.4
• Unit tests work irrespective of the directory they are run from.

1.5.3 [0.12.1] – 2017-10-24

Changed

• Made checksumming the default behavior, and removed its flag from the CLI. (@gbaier2)

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Fixed

• set requests encoding to UTF8

• fixed a backwards incompatible change in the geojson dependency
• inconsistent documentation on the use of range parameters such as date=

1.5.4 [0.12.0] – 2017-08-10

Added

• Option to change the type of spatial relation for the AOI in query(). The choices are ‘Interesects’, ‘Contains’
and ‘IsWithin’.
• order_by option to query() which controls the fields by which the products are sorted on the server side
before being returned. -o/--order-by on the CLI.
• limit the number of products returned by query() and to set the number of products to skip via offset.
-l/--limit on the CLI.
• Added raw parameter to query() to append any additional raw query string to the query.
• Query parameters that take intervals as values can now be passed a tuple of the interval range values.
• Date validation and parsing has been extended to all date-type parameters in queries, such as ‘ingestiondate’.
• Added count() which quickly returns the number of products matching a query on the server without retriev-
ing the full response.
• Method check_query_length to check if a query will fail because of being excessively long.
• Option to adjust the number of decimal figures in the coordinates of the WKT string returned by
geojson_to_wkt().
• CLI option to query by UUID (--uuid) or filename (--name).
• A more informative error message is shown if a too long query string was likely the cause of the query failing
on the server side. This can be useful if the WKT string length would cause the query to fail otherwise.
• Progressbars can be disabled by setting show_progressbars to False. Progressbars may be customized
by overriding the _tqdm() method.
• Contribution guidelines.
• Tests for validity of documentation and RST files.

Changed

• Merged CLI subcommands sentinel search and sentinel download into sentinelsat.
• CLI uses keywords instead of positional arguments, i.e. --user <username>.
• initial_date and end_date parameters in query() have been replaced with a single date parameter
that takes a tuple of start and end dates as input.
• Files being downloaded now include an ‘.incomplete’ suffix in their name until the download is finished.
• Removed check_existing option from download() and download_all(). Similar functionality has
been provided in the new check_files() function.
• format_query_date has been changed into a public function.

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Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

• Added a progressbar to long-running queries.

• Tests can now be run from any directory rather than the repository root.
• Made the query string slightly more compact by getting rid of unnecessary ‘AND’ operators, spaces and paren-
theses.
• Reduced the size of the VCR.py cassettes used in unit tests.
• changed license from AGPLv3 to GPLv3+

Deprecated

• query_raw() has been merged with query() and is deprecated. Use query(raw=...) instead.

Fixed

• Show the correct progress value in the download progressbar when continuing from an incomplete file. (Thanks
@gbaier!)
• Added a workaround for a server-side bug when plus symbols are used in a query.

1.5.5 [0.11] – 2017-06-01

Changed

• Replace pycurl dependency with requests. This makes installation significantly easier. (#117)
• An exception is raised in download_all() if all downloads failed.
• Change ‘Sentinels Scientific Datahub’ to ‘Copernicus Open Access Hub’ (#100)
• Renamed py.test option --vcr reset_all to --vcr reset to better reflect its true behavior.

1.5.6 [0.10] – 2017-05-30

Added

• GeoJSON footprints are allowed to contain just a single geometry instead of a feature collection. Any geometry
type that has a WKT equivalent is supported (rather than only Polygons).
• get_product_odata() can be used to get the full metadata information available for a product if
full=True is set.
• Added query_raw() that takes full text search string as input and returns a parsed dictionary just like the
updated query() method.
• CLI: --sentinel=<int> option to select satellite (constellation)

Changed

• SentinelAPI, etc. can be directly imported from sentinelsat rather than sentinelsat.sentinel.
• query() changes:
– The area argument expects a WKT string as input instead of a coordinate string. (Issue #101)

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 Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

– Date arguments can be disabled by setting them to None and their values are validated on the client side.
(Issue #101)
– The return value has been changed to a dict of dicts of parsed metadata values. One entry per product
with the product ID as the key.
• download_all() expects a list of product IDs as input. This is compatible with the output of query().
• get_coordinates() has been replaced with functions read_geojson() and geojson_to_wkt().
(Issue #101)
• Use more compact and descriptive error messages from the response headers, if available.

Deprecated

• CLI: --sentinel1 and --sentinel2 will be removed with the next major release

Removed

• to_dict() has been removed since it is no longer required.

• load_query() has been made private (renamed to _load_query()).

Fixed

• Fixed invalid GeoJSON output in both the CLI and API. (Issue #104)
• Fixed broken reporting of failed downloads in the CLI. (Issue #88)
• Attempting to download a product with an invalid ID no longer creates an infinite loop and a more informative
error message is displayed in the CLI.

1.5.7 [0.9.1] – 2017-03-06

Added

• --version option to command line utilities

• install requirements for building the documentation
• documentation of sorting with to_* convenience functions

1.5.8 [0.9] – 2017-02-26

Added

• Added to_dict, to_dataframe and to_geodataframe which convert the response content to respec-
tive types. The pandas, geopandas and shapely dependencies are not installed by default.

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Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

Changed

• --footprints now includes all returned product properties in the output.

• KeyError('No results returned.') is no longer returned for zero returned products in a response.
• Renamed get_footprint to to_geojson and get_product_info to get_product_odata.
• Added underscore to methods and functions that are not expected to be used outside the package.
• Instance variables url and content have been removed, last_query and last_status_code have
been made private.

1.5.9 [0.8.1] – 2017-02-05

Added

• added a changelog

Changed

• use logging instead of print

Fixed

• docs represent new query and download_all behaviour

1.5.10 [0.8] – 2017-01-27

Added

• options to create new, reset or ignore vcr cassettes for testing

Changed

• query now returns a list of search results

• download_all requires the list of search results as an argument

Removed

• SentinelAPI does not save query results as class attributes

1.5.11 [0.7.4] – 2017-01-14

Added

• Travis tests for Python 3.6

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 Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

1.5.12 [0.7.3] – 2016-12-09

Changed

• changed SentinelAPI max_rows attribute to page_size to better reflect pagination

• tests use vcrpy cassettes

Fixed

• support GeoJSON polygons with optional (third) z-coordinate

1.5.13 [0.7.1] – 2016-10-28

Added

• pagination support for query results

Changed

• number of query results per page set to 100

1.5.14 [0.6.5] – 2016-06-22

1.5.15 Added

• support for large queries

Changed

• Removed redundant information from Readme that is also present on Readthedocs

1.5.16 [0.6.4] – 2016-04-06-03

Changed

• initial_date / --start changed from ingestion to acquisition date

1.5.17 [0.6.1] – 2016-04-22

Added

• Sphinx documentation setup with autodoc and numpydoc

• Redthedocs.org integration

1.5. Change Log 23

Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

1.5.18 [0.5.5] – 2016-01-13

Added

• Sentinel-2 support

1.5.19 [0.5.1] – 2015-12-18

Added

• Travis added as continuous integration service for automated testing

1.5.20 [0.5] – 2015-12-09

Added

• validate downloaded products with their MD5 checksums

1.5.21 [0.4.3] – 2015-11-23

Added

• option to select a different dhus api --url

Changed

• https://scihub.esa.int/apihub/ as standard url

1.5.22 [0.4] – 2015-09-28

Added

• method to manually select the CA certificate bundle

• function to return footprints of the queried Sentinel scenes

Fixed

• CA-certificate SSL errors

1.5.23 [0.3] – 2015-06-10

Added

• --query parameter to use extra search keywords in the cli

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1.5.24 [0.1] – 2015-06-05

• first release

1.6 Indices and tables

• genindex
• modindex
• search

1.6. Indices and tables 25

Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

26 Chapter 1. Contents
 Python Module Index

s
sentinelsat, 11

27
Sentinelsat Documentation, Release 0.12.2

28 Python Module Index

 Index

C to_geodataframe() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static

check_files() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 12 method), 16
check_query_length() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static to_geojson() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static method), 16
method), 12
count() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 13

D
download() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 13
download_all() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 13

F
format_query() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static method),
14

G
geojson_to_wkt() (in module sentinelsat), 16
get_product_odata() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 14
get_products_size() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static
method), 14

I
InvalidChecksumError, 17

Q
query() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 14
query_raw() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI method), 16

R
read_geojson() (in module sentinelsat), 16

S
SentinelAPI (class in sentinelsat), 11
SentinelAPIError, 17
sentinelsat (module), 11

T
to_dataframe() (sentinelsat.SentinelAPI static method),
16

29