Example of a full process with GDAL library

In this short example you will learn how to run a series of scripts to obtain a GeoTIFF file for each band of the chosen product using as backend GDAL library.

Warning

This example is based on a Linux based system. If you use another operating system you need to change the paths where data will be saved

Downloading data

For first you need to obtain data, so you need to use modis_download.py

Warning

Remember to register in the NASA portal following the instructions at User and password session

mkdir $HOME/tmp
modis_download.py -I -f 2012-12-05 -O -t h28v05,h29v05,h28v04 $HOME/tmp

Warning

In this example we are working on the spatial extent of Italy: for your area of interest, change the tile name(s) according to your region.

User and password are passed through standard input.

We are going to download data for only one day (2012-12-05) using the option “-O”.

Inside the $HOME/tmp/ directory you will find a file called listfileMOD11A1.005.txt containing the names of downloaded files. The name of file is related to the product that you want to download.

Warning

Every time that you download new files of the same product they will be overwritten, so if you need them, you must rename the file before.

Mosaic data

At this point you need to create the mosaic of the tiles downloaded. modis_mosaic.py is the script to use. We create a VRT file (flag -v) to improve the speed of analysis, without losing any data only for the first layer

modis_mosaic.py -s "1" -o $HOME/tmp/mosaic -v $HOME/tmp/listfileMOD11A1.005.txt

The command will create a file called mosaic_LST_Day_1km.vrt in $HOME/tmp/ directory

Convert data

The last part of the procedure is to convert the mosaic using modis_convert.py. Using VRT format it create dataset of only one later, so you are forced to use -s "( 1 )". The following command create a GeoTIFF file called final_mosaic_LST_Day_1km.vrt.tif

modis_convert.py -v -s "( 1 )" -o $HOME/tmp/final -e 4326 $HOME/tmp/mosaic_LST_Day_1km.vrt