OpenStreetMap
The great utility of Sentinel images is that it provides the most recent images, almost weekly, at resolutions up to 10m/pixel, that can help much on mapping landuse, urbanization and major features on OSM, mostly on remote places not usally acessible to survey.
Example: Growing human occupation in Amazonia
Location: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=16/-9.5540/-72.1440
Bing and DG Image (Hi-res), date of tiles here 2006:
EOX Sentinel-2 Cloudless, already added to JOSM image list; but has not enough resolution for urbanization, nor enabled to select dates:
Sentinel Hub (better resolution): SENTINEL-2 L1C, selected 2018-09-05, no clouds.
In this image it can be seen the growth of human occupation compared to 2006 Bing image. Actually it can be used only with a Sentinel Hub account, providing API key. Perhaps further it may be implemented for JOSM.
Sentinel-2 can be used for mapping in OSM.
More info at
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Sentinel-2
https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/14921
https://www.sentinel-hub.com/develop
Discussion
Comment from imagico on 19 May 2019 at 10:55
General agreement on using open data imagery more extensively for mapping - either exclusively or as supplement to higher resolution data for recognizing recent changes.
But i kind of disapprove of advertising commercial services here that lure in users with the offer of free services to later once people got used to it start demanding money.
If you want Sentinel-2 imagery processed ready for use code-de offers free full resolution WMS services where you can select individual images or date ranges. For the most recent image for the area you look at you can in JOSM use for example:
wms:https://geoservice.code-de.org/Sentinel2/wms?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetMap&FORMAT=image/jpeg&TRANSPARENT=true&STYLES=raster&LAYERS=Sentinel2:S2_MSI_L1C&TIME=2019-05-18T15:07:21.024Z&SRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox}
You can also specify a time range. Note this is all using the standard tone mapping used for previews of Sentinel-2 images. This does not make use of the full potential of the data in particular in dark areas (like here) or bright areas. Processing the images yourself for a specific application (which you can do since it is open data obviously) allows you to extract a lot more information.
Relatively crude pixel statistics mosaics like the EOX imagery are generally not advisable for mapping purposes because of the high incidence of artefacts and high noise levels leading to very difficult interpretation, low content of actual information and a high likeliness of misinterpreting artefacts for actual features. This might still be convenient for a quick look but investing time into tracing from such imagery is universally a bad idea. Editors should IMO display a prominent warning along these lines when mappers use such layers.
Comment from smaprs on 19 May 2019 at 12:02
I forgot to mention, it also can be downloaded from earthexplorer.usgs.gov free of charges, full tiles.
No advertising for signing for accounts here, sinnce Sentinel hub already gently offered free access for us to use it as a built in layer JOSM, see ticket. Just to spread it, make information known for other users is not bad. Actualy the point here is that it’s a problem that the only way till now is from an account. Hope we just need to find a way to implement a built in lik for JOSM for everybody using. But I know nothing on programming.
I ll see the link you provided. Thanks. Important to consider the resolution. Sentinel hub is up to 10m. If that is, fine.
Comment from alexkemp on 19 May 2019 at 12:23
Hi imagico
I was excited at your code-de.org URL as all existing JOSM imagery in the Nottingham area that I normally map is woefully out-of-date. All I got was an all-white tile. Oh dear.
Is there any obvious error here?
URL: https://geoservice.code-de.org/Sentinel2/wms?
SERVICE=WMS&
VERSION=1.1.1&
REQUEST=GetMap&
FORMAT=image/jpeg&
TRANSPARENT=true&
STYLES=raster&
LAYERS=Sentinel2:S2_MSI_L1C&
TIME=2019-05-18T15:07:21.024Z&
SRS=EPSG:3857&
WIDTH=512&
HEIGHT=512&
BBOX=-117408.1315892,6975949.5107892,-112516.1619892,6980841.4803892
Comment from imagico on 19 May 2019 at 12:40
The nodata color of this WMS is white and there obviously is no image around Nottingham with that exact time stamp. There is a good, mostly cloud free image covering Nottingham at 2019-04-20T11:21:19.024Z - but as said the standard tone mapping does not really give you anywhere near the full potential.
Comment from alexkemp on 19 May 2019 at 13:08
Hi imagico
Well yes, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to discover how to laboriously find a valid date, plus the correct format. Here is an example, and also the minimum height for a reasonable picture. This is simply unusable:
https://geoservice.code-de.org/Sentinel2/wms?
SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetMap&FORMAT=image/jpeg&
TRANSPARENT=true&STYLES=raster&
LAYERS=Sentinel2:S2_MSI_L1C&
TIME=2019-04-20T11:21:19Z&
SRS=EPSG:3857&
WIDTH=512&HEIGHT=512&
BBOX=-136976.0099892,6966165.5715892,-117408.1315892,6985733.4499892
Comment from imagico on 19 May 2019 at 13:22
As said - you can specify a specific strip timestamp or you can specify a date range (like
2019-05-01T00:00:00Z/2019-05-15T00:00:00Z). You can use the code-de browser or the ESA Open Access Hub to identify the image you want. And you can use the WMS in JOSM then. How useful this is for mapping depends on the location and what you specifically look for.