Objectives of the service
This project has delivered a fully-fledged low-touch Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enabling non-coders to create, on the cloud and on-demand, customised geospatial solutions and insights with ease. The resulting product has opened up satellite analytics to domain experts without expertise in geospatial analyses, a global market of environmental data analysts.
The project built upon a non-scalable prototype which was rapidly deployed to test the demand and understand in greater detail the requirements of such a platform. This enabled data analysts to build some responsive and customised Earth Observation solutions but it was limited in flexibility and scalability.
Barriers to entry into the EO and geospatial industries are large, predominantly due to the level of expertise required. As a result, Earth Blox was conceived to be “like Lego for Earth Observation analytics” – empowering anyone, regardless of their EO expertise, to DIY their own EO solution. This project has enabled us to achieve this vision, moving from the prototype which operated more like a jigsaw puzzle.
Users and their needs
Customer segments of Earth Observation and geospatial data are varied but have one thing in common: they have critical needs to monitor rapidly changing spatial assets that are difficult to access, globally distributed or geographically disparate.
Our long-term vision is to serve the data analyst function found within multiple verticals. We target a job function rather than an industry. As a result, our product offering can be characterised as horizontal and we target the data analyst function who are involved in the management, monitoring and/or assessment/reporting of continuously changing spatial assets.
Broadly, these users require:
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The ability to self-serve access to the platform
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They need to access datasets relevant to their task
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Then undertake analysis on that data
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This needs to be packaged up in a way that best suits their needs.
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They need to be able to export outputs in a way that best suits their needs.
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This may also include integrating with existing tools.
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Users need to be able to collaborate on work together.
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They also need to be able to access support and EO expertise when required.
Service/ system concept
Scalable Earth Blox allows users to combine their own datasets with the very best available datasets from public and private repositories and databases. They can then use a combination of pre-built or custom-built workflows to analyse these data. Users can generate insights delivered via dashboards as maps, charts, and tables. These outputs can be exported or queried via API. This entire journey can then be packaged up in a custom-designed way to best meet the needs of each organisation.
Space Added Value
Earth Blox can provide access to over 900 datasets, through our partnership with Google, totalling >40 Petabytes, including the following satellite-derived data layers and products: Sentinels 1, 2, 3 and 5P, the entire EROS (USGS/NASA) Landsat catalogue, numerous MODIS product datasets, NAIP data, precipitation data, sea surface temperature data, CHIRPS climate data, & elevation data, to name a few. All of these data sets are global and updated within 24hrs of ingestion into Earth Engine. There are no other sources of data that match the speed and coverage offered, other than that provided by commercial space companies.
In this project, we have also demonstrated how users can ingest data from multiple sources, including commercial data providers. These datasets, paired with the scalable computing power backed by Google data centres and flexible APIs allow quick implementation of geospatial workflows. This enables cutting-edge, low-latency, global-scale analysis and visualisation without the user requiring a desktop computer with high processing power and significant storage capacity.
Current Status
The project objective was to take a limited prototype and scale it in the way that our target customers need. We conclude that we have achieved this desired objective as demonstrated through the commercial success of our pilot programme as part of this project, where commercial roll-out was able to start during the project's lifetime. In part, this is a result of the improved versatility and the range of jobs to be done that our users can complete by using the product. We have also seen a consistent and sustained increase in the number of users actively engaging with the platform, and undertaking more analyses on average than pre-project. Additionally, we have demonstrated the ability to scale the processing, with a significant increase in the level of compute consumed by our users during the pilot – the average level is now approximately double the pre-project level.
Therefore, we can conclude that this project has helped to take our innovative product to the next level and leverage the power of cloud processing without the need for coding or high-level EO expertise, enabling the processing of Petabytes of planetary-scale geospatial data and the creation/download of actionable insights in minutes rather than months, with unprecedented power and ease. The automated, scalable cloud solution allows users the freedom to combine analytics, independently of data sources, while remaining scientifically robust.
The potential applications are wide-ranging: historic and/or near real-time analytics can be achieved code-free to monitor the drastic changes on our planet including the tracking of deforestation (which accounts for approximately 20% of global GHG emissions), the monitoring of at-risk supply chains, and so on. Earth Blox is helping users turn spatial data into actionable insights, allowing them to make informed decisions about risk, opportunity, and compliance to build a sustainable future for their organisations.
Prime Contractor(s)
