Terrascope QGIS Plugin

A QGIS plugin for searching and visualizing Terrascope STAC API data, with time slider and time series plotting capabilities.

Features

• STAC Search Panel - Query Terrascope collections with spatial extent, date range, and cloud cover filters
• COG Loading - Stream Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs) directly into QGIS via /vsicurl/
• Time Slider - Step through multi-temporal raster layers with auto-play
• Time Series Plot - Click a map location to extract and chart pixel values over time
• Authentication - OAuth2 login with automatic background token refresh
• Update Checker - Check for plugin updates from GitHub

Installation

From QGIS Plugin Manager (Recommended)

1. Open QGIS
2. Go to Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins...
3. Search for "Terrascope"
4. Click Install Plugin

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release zip from GitHub Releases
2. In QGIS, go to Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins... > Install from ZIP
3. Select the downloaded zip file

From Source

git clone https://github.com/opengeos/qgis-terrascope-plugin.git
cd qgis-terrascope-plugin
python install.py

Authentication

To access Terrascope data, you need a free account:

1. Register at https://terrascope.be
2. In QGIS, open the Terrascope > Settings panel
3. Enter your username and password
4. Click Login

The plugin handles OAuth2 authentication and automatically refreshes tokens in the background.

Usage

Search for Data

1. Open Terrascope > Search Panel
2. Select a collection (e.g., terrascope-s2-ndvi-v2)
3. Click Use Map Canvas Extent to set the bounding box
4. Set the date range and cloud cover filter
5. Click Search
6. Select results and click Load Selected or Load All to Time Slider

Time Slider

1. Load data via the Search Panel's Load All to Time Slider button
2. Use the slider or transport controls (First, Previous, Next, Last) to step through dates
3. Enable Auto-Play to animate through time steps

Time Series Plot

1. Load data into the Time Slider
2. Open Terrascope > Time Series
3. Click Activate Point Tool
4. Click on the map to extract pixel values at that location across all time steps
5. Export results with Export CSV or Save Plot

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/opengeos/qgis-terrascope-plugin.git
cd qgis-terrascope-plugin
pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

Install for Testing

python install.py --name terrascope

Package for Release

python package_plugin.py

Code Quality

pre-commit run --all-files

Dependencies

The plugin requires the following Python packages (auto-installed on first run):

• requests - HTTP client for OAuth2 authentication
• pystac-client - STAC API client
• matplotlib - Time series plotting (optional, for chart functionality)

Trouble shooting

Installation issues with dependencies on Windows? If you’re using QGIS on Windows, make sure to install Python dependencies from the OSGeo4W Shell, which uses the same Python environment as QGIS.

1. Open the Windows search bar and search for OSGeo4W Shell
2. Launch it — this opens a command line configured for the QGIS environment
3. From this shell, install or upgrade dependencies using pip, for example:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install pystac-client

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.