Finding and Downloading Landsat Data from USGS GloVIS Website

All Landsat data are available to the public at no cost from a U.S. Geological Survey website, the Global Visualization Viewer (GloVIS):  http://glovis.usgs.gov

  1. Create a folder for the data

  2. go to GloVIS at this URL: http://glovis.usgs.gov

  3. Select a satellite collection : Collection => Landsat Archieve => "Landsat 4 - present"
    Note: Available data includes the entire archive dating back to 1972.  The best data for comparability with current dates begins with Landsat 5 in 1984.

  4. Find your scene of interest by clicking on the interactive map.
    Each Landsat scene covers a region of approximately 182 km x 185 km.
    Y ou may wish to turn on "city names" or "country boundaries" in “Map Layers” (near top) in order to help locate your scene of interest.

  5. How to understand the information about the scene highlighted in yellow box:

    WRS-2:  Worldwide Reference System (WRS) refers to the global notation for Landsat data.  See “path/row” below.

    Path/Row:  As the spacecraft moves along its path, the sensor scans the terrain below. A grid system of paths and rows (the WRS) is used to provide a reference number for each scene.

    Lat/Long:  Each path and row grid can be identified by its latitude and longitude, as well as by its path and row.

    Max Cloud: You can choose what percentage of a scene you are willing to have covered by clouds. (Landsat sensors do not see through clouds.)  If you choose “30%,” the GloVIS search function will show you only scenes with 30% or less cloud coverage.

    Scene Information:  Example: LT50140342010128EDC00

    the third character in each ID tells you which satellite acquired the scene. In this case, “LT5 indicates that the scene was acquired by the Landsat 5 satellite (not Landsat 4, or 7). (The letters T and E indicate the sensor; please see “Sensor” below.)

    CC:  Cloud cover. 15% means clouds cover 15 % of the scene.
    Landsat sensors cannot see through clouds. The closer to 0% this is, the better.

    Date:  This is the date when the scene was acquired: year/month/day – So in the case of the example number, 2010 is the year; 12 is the month (December); and 8 is the day.

    Qlty: 9:  Quality ranges from 0-9 with 9 being the best.

    Sensor: This information tells you what instrument on the satellite acquired the image. If it says "TM" it refers to Landsat 4 or 5’s Thematic Mapper. If it says "ETM+" it refers to Landsat 7’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus.

    Note that Landsat 7 had a malfunction in mid-2003 that created data gaps in the imagery. The malfunction was in the Scan Line Corrector (SLC). So whenever you see ETM+ SLC-off there will be data gaps in that scene, appearing as striping on both sides.

  6. The word, “Downloadable” may appear in the upper left-hand corner of the scene itself, in red font. That usually – but not always – means you can download the scene right away, without having to order the scene from USGS (and waiting for 4-5 working days).

  7. For each scene you think you might want, make sure it is selected within the yellow box, then click “Add,” near lower left of screen. 
  8. Click on “Send to Cart.”
  9. lick on the icon with green arrow under “Operations.” A Download Options window will appear.
  10. The files will be compressed, so uncompress them using zip software.
  11. ach of the files whose name ends in “TIF” holds the data from one Landsat band .

 

Importing Landsat Data into ERDAS IMAGINE (into .img format)

Each .tif file represents a different Landsat band (called layers in IMAGINE). You will need to separately import all seven .tifs corresponding to
your image into IMAGINE, and then combine them to form a single stacked image. Only bands 1-5 and 7 (the visible and infrared bands) become part of the final stacked image, but import band 6 (the thermal band) and band 8 (the panchromatic band) into IMAGINE .img format as well.

or

Directly read 1-5,7 band .tif files and stack into a .img file as follows :