Analyzing Landsat Image Metadata with the Spatial DataFrame

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07-19-2017 06:24 PM
GregoryBrunner
Esri Contributor
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A few weeks ago, Esri released an update to the ArcGIS API for Python. The newest release includes:

Hopefully, you can tell that the new functionality in the API that I am most excited about is the spatial dataframe! The spatial dataframe extends the pandas dataframe by adding geometry, spatial reference, and other spatial components to the dataframe. In adding the spatial dataframe to the API, ArcGIS users can now read feature classes, feature services, and image services directly into a dataframe. Once in a spatial dataframe, users can perform fast statistical and spatial analysis on the dataupdate existing feature services, and convert the dataframe to a feature class or shapefile. These are just a few examples of how you can use the spatial dataframe.

What really interests me is how this can be used with an ArcGIS image service. Can I use the spatial dataframe to extract image footprints from an image service? Can I use it to perform statistical analysis image footprints over a specific part of the world?

The answer to both of these questions is Yes! In this post, I’ll walk through how to use the API for Python to extract image service footprints from the Landsat 8 Views image service, show how to use a spatial filter to extract only footprints over New Jersey, determine the mean cloud cover and most recent acquisition date of the images, and share those image footprints as a feature service. If you have ever been interested in doing any of these, check out my post at gavinr.com!