SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC)

STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog) is a community-driven open specification that provides a common language for describing geospatial dataGeospatial DataGeospatial data encompasses information about the location, shape, and relationships of physical features on Earth. I... assets so they can be more easily searched, discovered, and accessed. Born from the challenge of finding and using the rapidly growing volume of Earth observation data, STAC standardizes how metadata about satellite imagerySatellite ImagerySatellite imagery consists of photographs and data captured by Earth observation satellites orbiting the planet. Thes..., aerial photography, and derived products is structured and served. The STAC specification defines four core components: Items (individual spatiotemporal assets with metadata including geometry, datetime, and links to data files), Catalogs (hierarchical groupings of items), Collections (groups of related items with shared metadata like satellite mission, spectral bands, and spatial extent), and the STAC API (a RESTful interface for searching items by spatial, temporal, and property filters). STAC metadata is encoded as GeoJSONGeoJSONGeoJSON is an open standard format for encoding geographic data structures using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). I..., making it compatible with standard geospatial tools. Extensions add domain-specific metadata fields for electro-optical, SARSARSynthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is an active remote sensing technology that uses microwave radar pulses to create high..., point cloudPoint CloudA point cloud is a large set of three-dimensional data points representing the external surface of objects or terrain..., and other data types. STAC has been adopted by major Earth observation data providers including NASA (LPCLOUD), Microsoft Planetary Computer, Google Earth EngineGoogle Earth EngineGoogle Earth Engine is a cloud-based geospatial analysis platform that combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite..., AWS Open Data, Element 84, and Planet LabsPlanet LabsPlanet Labs is a commercial satellite imagery provider that operates the largest constellation of Earth observation s.... It enables cross-catalog search, allowing users to discover data from multiple providers through a unified query interface. STAC Browser and STAC Index provide web-based exploration of STAC catalogs, while pystac and rstac provide client libraries for programmatic access. STAC has become the de facto standard for cloud-native Earth observation data distribution.