LinuxCommandLibrary

esa-snap

Process satellite imagery data with ESA SNAP

TLDR

Display all updates

$ snap --nosplash --nogui --modules --list --refresh
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Display help
$ snap --help
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SYNOPSIS

esa-snap [OPTIONS]

PARAMETERS

--help, -h
    Displays a brief help message about the command's usage and available options.

--version, -v
    Prints the version information of the SNAP application.

--nosplash
    Launches the SNAP GUI without displaying the initial splash screen.

--diag
    Starts the SNAP application in a diagnostic mode, useful for troubleshooting.

--console
    Attempts to run SNAP in a console-only mode, typically for debugging or specific headless operations (less commonly used than 'gpt' for batch processing).

DESCRIPTION

ESA SNAP (Sentinel Application Platform) is a free and open-source desktop application developed by the European Space Agency (ESA).
It provides a common architecture for all Sentinel Toolboxes, facilitating the processing and analysis of satellite Earth observation data, including Sentinel-1 (radar), Sentinel-2 (optical), and Sentinel-3 (optical, oceanography).
SNAP offers a rich set of functionalities for data visualization, exploration, and processing, including various algorithms for radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction, terrain correction, and more.
While esa-snap primarily launches the graphical user interface, it's part of a larger ecosystem that includes powerful command-line tools for automated processing.

CAVEATS

esa-snap is a Java-based application and can be resource-intensive, consuming significant CPU and RAM, especially when processing large datasets.
This command primarily launches the Graphical User Interface (GUI). For batch processing or automation, the gpt (Graph Processing Tool) command-line utility, which is part of the SNAP distribution, is typically used instead.

<B>BATCH PROCESSING WITH GPT</B>

While esa-snap launches the graphical user interface, the SNAP software suite includes a powerful command-line tool called gpt (Graph Processing Tool).
gpt allows users to execute processing graphs, which are sequences of operators, directly from the command line.
This is crucial for automating complex processing workflows and integrating SNAP into larger scripting environments.
Users can define graphs within the SNAP GUI and then export them for use with gpt.

HISTORY

ESA SNAP (Sentinel Application Platform) was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide a common open-source architecture for processing and analyzing data from its Sentinel missions and other Earth observation satellites.
Its development started around 2012-2013, aiming to replace various legacy toolboxes (like NEST, BEAM, SMOS) with a unified platform.

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