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Finding and Using GIS Data

The AGS Library's Guide to Finding GIS data and working with it for your specific project needs

Global Visualization Viewer

GloVis

GloVis

Homepage: https://glovis.usgs.gov/app

About: GloVis (Global Visualization Viewer) is a web application which allows users to find remote sensing data for a specified geographic area. Multiple scenes and time periods are available for many locations.

Data Available: Full band source imagery is available for download. Note: Must be logged in to download products (free account with the USGS).

Included Datasets:

  • Global Land Survey (GLS) - Legacy Landsat images from 1972 to 1912
  • Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)
  • Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle (DOQs) - Digital images of archival aerial photos from 1987 to 2006 which combine the image characteristics of the photo with the georeferenced qualities of a map.

  • Earth Observing One (EO-1) - 10- to 30-meter multispectral and hyperspectral data from the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Extended Mission. (2000 to 2017) 

  • ISRO Resourcesat 1 and Resourcesat 2 - AWiFS - The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Resourcesat-1 (2003- present) and Resourcesat-2 (2011-present) satellites provide multispectral images at 24- (LISS-3) and 56- (AWiFS) meter resolution.

  • Landsat Archives - Landsat 8 OLI (Operational Land Imager) and TIRS (Thermal Infrared Sensor) - 15- to 30- meter multispectral data from Landsat 8

  • Commercial Satellites - OrbView 3 - GeoEye’s OrbView-3 satellite was among the world’s first commercial satellites to provide high-resolution imagery from space. (2003 to 2007)

  • Sentinel-2 - The European Space Agency’s Multispectral Instrument on the Sentinel-2 satellite provides global (from 83 degrees north 56 degrees south latitude) 10-meter resolution, multispectral images every 10 days (2015-present). This dataset was removed.

  • Digital Elevation - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Void Filled - SRTM data have been enhanced to fill areas of missing data to provide more complete digital elevation data with a resolution of 1 arc-second for the United States and 3 arc-seconds for global coverage.

Instructions

How to Get GIS Data

Note: A very useful first step is to click "Take Tour" in the upper left corner. The tour guides you through basic functions of this web app.

1. Click "Login" in the upper right corner of the page. If you do not have a username and password, click "Create New Account" to sign up for free.

2. In the "Choose Your Datasets" box on the left side of the page, use the slider buttons to turn on the dataset you wish to view. If this icon is displayed next to the dataset name it means that the map must be zoomed in to be able to see the imagery.

3. Using the reticule as a guide, center the map on your area of interest to display available images.

4. Once you have found an image of interest, click the small up arrow in the lower right corner immediately below the map window. In this window, you can adjust the timeframe (if available), view metadata, and download images.

The Contents of Finding and Using GIS Data may be reused with attribution for Non-Commercial purposes.

Finding and Using GIS Data by Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.