Access Vantor (Maxar) Open Data

Visualize and download imagery from Maxar Open Data program

Earthscale makes it easy to access data from Vantor's (formerly Maxar) Open Data Program. This program provides high-resolution satellite imagery captured before and after humanitarian crises, with a focus on disaster response.

With Earthscale you can:

• Visualize this data alongside other datasets in your catalog

• Reproject imagery to align with your desired coordinate system and pixel grid

• Export only the data you need to your local machine

Exploring available data

You can browse available datasets through Maxar's STAC catalog.

The data is hosted on the AWS Registry of Open Data. To explore what's available using the AWS CLI:

aws s3 ls --no-sign-request s3://maxar-opendata/

Understanding the file structure

Files are organized in this pattern:

s3://maxar-opendata/events/{EVENT}/ard/{ZOOM}/{TILE_COORDS}/{DATE}/{SCENE_ID}-{PRODUCT}.tif

For example:

s3://maxar-opendata/events/HurricaneHelene-Oct24/ard/17/031311010113/2024-10-06/104001009C0CE600-visual.tif

Where:

• HurricaneHelene-Oct24 - Event collection name

• ard - Analysis-Ready Data (pre-processed)

• 17 - Web Mercator zoom level (higher = more detail, smaller coverage)

• 031311010113 - Slippy map tile coordinates at zoom 17

• 2024-10-06 - Image acquisition date

• 104001009C0CE600-visual.tif - Scene ID + product type

Available product types:

• -visual.tif - RGB composite (recommended for visualization)

• -ms.tif - Multispectral imagery (RGB + NIR bands)

• -pan.tif - Panchromatic (high-resolution grayscale)

• -cloud-mask.gpkg - Cloud locations as vector polygons

Adding the data to Earthscale

This example shows how to add RGB imagery from Hurricane Helene (October 2024). The result will be a raster mosaic time series that stitches together tiles across multiple acquisitions.

Steps:

1. In Earthscale, click Add New Dataset and select the Cloud Source tab

2. Paste a URL pattern using wildcards to match all files:

   s3://maxar-opendata/events/HurricaneHelene-Oct24/ard/17/*/*/*-visual.tif

1. Wait a few seconds while Earthscale scans the files

2. Rename the dataset to something meaningful (e.g., "Hurricane Helene")

3. Expand the Filename Date Pattern option and set it to: %Y-%m-%d This tells Earthscale that dates in the file path follow the pattern YYYY-MM-DD

4. Click to register the dataset. It may take a minute to parse through the files.

The dataset will appear on your map. Zoom in to view the imagery. Note that coverage varies by location and date.

For multispectral data (-ms.tif), before and after imagery may come from different sensors. If sensor consistency matters for your analysis, load acquisitions as separate datasets.

Once it finishes, the dataset should appear on your map. Zoom in to view the data. Note that not all areas have data for all times.

Exporting the data

1. Select the Export tab in the top bar

2. Define your area of interest (AOI) by either:

   • Drawing a bounding box on the map

   • Selecting bounds from an uploaded vector dataset (e.g., administrative boundaries)

3. Adjust the bounding box size or resolution if needed to meet your account tier's export size limits

4. Configure export settings:

   • Spatial resolution

   • Coordinate reference system (CRS)

   • Optional: Align to match an existing dataset in your catalog (simplifies downstream analysis)

5. Click the export button and wait for processing to complete

6. Download your cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs as a zip file

License

This data is provided under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).

You must:

• Provide attribution to Maxar with a link to their license

• Use the data only for non-commercial purposes

You cannot:

• Use this data for commercial purposes

• Redistribute it through commercial platforms or services

For commercial use cases, contact Maxar directly about licensing options.