Geospatial Data Resources Guide: Planet.com

UW Libraries started providing the UW campus access to Planet.com data in April 2024. Planet provides daily satellite imagery of Earth's land surfaces and coastal areas, and captures over 300 million square kilometers of imagery each data. Account creation is required to access data on Planet.com.

Come join us for the 2024 UW Libraries GIS Symposium on Thursday, May 30th, to learn more about the new campus license to Planet.com!

UW current campus affiliates have access to the following global datasets:

• PlanetScope ~ 3.7m resolution in four spectral bands: RGB and Near Infrared

• SkySat archive ~ 50cm resolution imagery older than 6 months (no imagery within the past 6 months)

• RapidEye archive ~5m resolution imagery archive from 2009 to 2020

• Basemaps - time series mosaicked products optimized for either visual reflectance (8-bit) or radiometric consistency (16-bit)

• Planet Stories - a simple tool to provide imagery time-lapse

• Access to imagery via an API, web applications or GIS integrations

For more information about Planet, see Planet.com and the Planet documentation portal.

• Planet Integrations

  Planet’s GIS Integrations with ArcGIS Pro and QGIS as well as Google Earth Engine (GEE) documentation)

• Getting Started with Planet API keys

  Planet has a range of APIs, such as the Data API for searching Planet's data catalog, Orders API for creating analysis-ready data, and Subscriptions API for subscribing and monitoring continuous cloud delivery of imagery and metadata collections.

• Open Tools for Planet (Python, Jupyter Notebooks, GitHub)

  Access python library's, Jupyter Notebook, and Planet's GitHub repo along with other tools and resources that make it easier to work with Planet imagery.

• Planet Documentation Portal

  Browse user guides, documentation and full API references for Planet's APIs, GIS Integrations, Imagery and Apps.

• Planet University

  Access tutorials, on-demand webinars, upcoming webinars and more.

• Planet Community

  Space for latest product updates, community forums, and much more.

• Accessing Images in Planet Explorer

What you can do with UW's Planet.com subscription:

• Download, reproduce, store, display and print content from Planet.com
• Create derivative products solely for UW, non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
• Publish static derivative products in perpetuity, including in educational research journals.
• Publish dynamic derivative products on UW-hosted websites.

What you cannot do with UW's Planet.com subscription:

• Share or transfer data downloaded from Planet.com to anyone outside  of UW.
• Share access to the Planet.com platform.
• Creative derivative products for reasons other than for UW, non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
• Create derivative products without attribution clearly identifying Planet Labs Inc. as a source of the content.
• Misuse the Planet.com platform by unduly burdening the system, or using Planet.com in ways that are inconsistent with normal usage. 

UW Libraries makes the Planet.com service available for you for your convenience. Your use of Planet.com is voluntary. When you use this service, personal information about you is collected by UW Libraries to create your user account. Only your name and email are submitted to Planet.com by UW Libraries. Please review the Planet.com Privacy Statement on their website before using this service if you have any concerns.

Content on this page has been adapted from Planet.com guides from UBC, UCSD, and University of Arizona.