Hey Mike,
if your requirements are global here are some pointers
-
NAIP is for us Agricultural lands only but a good source (USA only) there
-
Bing maps have a more permissive lic than Google you can find out what that includes
-
Regional and local coverage for imagers is spotty using local city/region etc services
-
Planet (labs) has great imagery but afaik they are not selling individual imagery of one point in time but a like an ongoing subscription mostly for mobile apps and web maps less for but would be good to find out exactly
-
If you are to do this more often as noted Landsat (and SPOT) imagery are sources, however have a resolution of 30 m,
so Sentinel 2 imagery might be the better choice with global coverage (at up to 10m resolution) see here https://scihub.copernicus.eu/
-
If using satellite imagery for this you might want to learn the SCP plug-in that was created by Luca Congedo that can make false color images , correction and land cover analysis in QGIS see here with tutorials and all
https://fromgistors.blogspot.com/p/semi-automatic-classification-plugin.html
Cheers
Karsten
From: Qgis-us-user [mailto:qgis-us-user-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Mike Seskin
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 09:15
To: Randal Hale; qgis-us-user@lists.osgeo.org; Doug Newcomb
Subject: Re: [Qgis-us-user] New to QGIS and Spatial analysis
Randy / Doug
Thanks for all the great info on imagery sources. Ironically (Randy) you mentioned gas turbines, which happens to be connected to my whole reason for investigating GIS. Therefore my imagery requirements are global since our engines our scattered throughout the world. I’ll investigate some of the sources you provided, excluding the localized ones.
Mike Seskin | EQL
Office: (858) 694-1851 | Cell: (442) 245-1779
Email: seskin_michael_x@solarturbines.com
Solar Turbines Incorporated
Caterpillar: Confidential Green
From: Randal Hale rjhale@northrivergeographic.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 8:10 AM
To: qgis-us-user@lists.osgeo.org; Mike Seskin Seskin_Michael_X@solarturbines.com
Subject: Re: [Qgis-us-user] New to QGIS and Spatial analysis
That’s awesome.
Google imagery (assuming you’re using QuickMapServices) is pushed through a service and I think those services are usually pretty locked down with licensing plus it’s a service so it’s just harder to deal with.
So I think you can purchase Google imagery - not sure of the cost.
Depending on where you are and what you’re doing here’s what I would do:
-
Check with the local City/County and see if they have imagery. It will be probably 6 inch to 1 foot in resolution. There may be a charge or it may be free. Example: Hamilton County TN has an image service that QGIS can use and they sell imagery.
-
Check with the state you are in and see what they have. I would search for “State of Mike GIS Data” (with Mike being the state you’re in) and see what pops up. Example: The state has an imagery service and they sell imagery to the general public and to counties. Go back to 1 and they (county) may give you what they purchased. Tn has free LIDAR data for download also.
-
Federal is the next step - NAIP (1 meter). That’s free and may be awesome for what you want or may not be. https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/aerial-photography/imagery-programs/naip-imagery/
-
Weird use cases that may have imagery in the area - like some utilities will fly their own imagery and have that available if you ask nice (I was a former Federal Utility Employee in Tennessee which had some gas turbines).
-
Landsat will completely work but I think that may still be 30 meter pixel size - but it’s free. There are some other satellite imagery that is free also - you’re just trading resolution for cost.
-
Planet labs sells imagery - but not sure of the cost on that on either.
Yeah - that’s the hard part - imagery. Software is easy - imagery makes my head hurt.
Randy
On Tuesday, March 15, 2022 10:10:35 AM EDT Mike Seskin wrote:
Hi Randal - thanks very much for this high level overview, it’s incredibly helpful for a beginner
like me!
I took some excellent earlier direction from Karsten who pointed me towards a solution using the
graphical modeler - it seemed perfect until I ran it and encountered some inexplicable error with
the Google satellite raster - that is until I read your reply, and now it makes sense! What a
bummer about the licensing – as you said the imagery is the kicker!
Are my following imagery options correct?
- Purchase a license from Google
- Use landstat for free
Thanks
Mike Seskin | EQL
Office: (858) 694-1851 | Cell: (442) 245-1779
Email: seskin_michael_x@solarturbines.com
Solar Turbines Incorporated
Caterpillar: Confidential Green
From: Randal Hale <rjhale@northrivergeographic.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 6:53 AM
To: qgis-us-user@lists.osgeo.org; Mike Seskin <Seskin_Michael_X@solarturbines.com>
Subject: Re: [Qgis-us-user] New to QGIS and Spatial analysis
CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL
This is a message from rjhale@northrivergeographic.com<mailto:rjhale@northrivergeographic.com%3E.
Use caution when opening unexpected emails and do not click on links or attachments from unknown
senders. For more resources, visit http://security.cat.com/phishing.
Hey Mike - Welcome to the list.
So the short answer is yes and the longer answer is Yes it’s a little complicated but doable.
For the explanation I’'m going to completely ignore projections - that’s a whole other discussion.
If you had a point (like a tower) you could run the buffer tool and buffer it one mile. From there
I think you would “clip by mask layer” and extract the image. You could save that as a geotiff or
whatever you needed. Life would be good. (I say all that like you know where the tools are - look
for processing at the top of QGIS - that gives you processing tools).
The bigger problem is the imagery - you can’t clip Google Satellite imagery and use that per the
license from Google. So you would need another image source be it landsat or something local
(maybe the county you’re working in has imagery they would share). Imagery is a pain.
Really - that’s the kicker - the imagery. Get that and then there’s the whole discussion on "get
it in a local projection" and you’re done - it’s about three steps in QGIS to get what you want.
It’s completely doable! I dunno how much this has helped but you’re on the right track.
Commands:
https://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/processing_algs/qgis/vectorgeometry.html#qgisbuf
fer<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/processing_algs/q
gis/vectorgeometry.html*qgisbuffer__;Iw!!M7dyoZOwuwF45AU!kH6lFpUw2LB9mr5_sJC7Zg6MmXJdUngpW3rDnn-6N
jHwqzsxp1QIcIxEKimYAZTIwRUeetxWcrE$>
https://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/processing_algs/gdal/rasterextraction.html#gdalc
liprasterbymasklayer<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/
processing_algs/gdal/rasterextraction.html*gdalcliprasterbymasklayer__;Iw!!M7dyoZOwuwF45AU!kH6lFpU
w2LB9mr5_sJC7Zg6MmXJdUngpW3rDnn-6NjHwqzsxp1QIcIxEKimYAZTIwRUez1pQDmU$>
Yell if you need anything!
Randy
On Monday, March 14, 2022 7:10:56 PM EDT Mike Seskin wrote:
Preamble:
- I’ve been unsuccessfully searching for answers online for several days
- I am new to spatial analysis and GIS, and therefore trying to figure out what it can and
cannot do
Question:
I recently installed QGIS in the hopes it can help me create satellite image files from a shape
file consisting of points. I want to automatically define an area (for instance 1 square mile)
around each point and save the Google satellite image of each of the 1-square mile areas. Is
this possible in QGIS?
Thanks
Mike Seskin | EQL
Office: (858) 694-1851 | Cell: (442) 245-1779
Email: seskin_michael_x@solarturbines.com<mailto:seskin_michael_x@solarturbines.com%3E
Solar Turbines Incorporated
Caterpillar: Confidential Green
–
Randal Hale
North River Geographic Systems, Inc
https://www.northrivergeographic.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.northrivergeographic.c
om__;!!M7dyoZOwuwF45AU!kH6lFpUw2LB9mr5_sJC7Zg6MmXJdUngpW3rDnn-6NjHwqzsxp1QIcIxEKimYAZTIwRUexeg9u2g
$>
(p) 423.653.3611
(e) rjhale@northrivergeographic.com<mailto:rjhale@northrivergeographic.com%3E
–
Randal Hale
North River Geographic Systems, Inc
https://www.northrivergeographic.com
(p) 423.653.3611
(e) rjhale@northrivergeographic.com