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Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro is an Azure cloud service for storing, cataloging, and securely distributing geospatial data across an enterprise. This article helps you with the basics of deploying the service and creating your first SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) Collection to store and distribute your geospatial data.
Prerequisites
- An Azure account and subscription Create an account for free.
Table of Contents
Deploy a GeoCatalog resource in your Azure subscription
A Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro deployment is called a GeoCatalog and is available to deploy through the Azure portal.
To deploy a GeoCatalog, go to the Azure portal and search for "GeoCatalog"
For more information about the deployment process, see the Deploy GeoCatalog Quickstart.
After you deploy the service, you can control access to the GeoCatalog resource through the Access control (IAM) tab in the left sidebar:
For more information about the GeoCatalog Administrator and GeoCatalog Reader roles, see Manage Access.
Create a STAC Collection to organize your data
All data managed in Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro is organized into groupings that conform to the STAC Collection standard.
To create a new STAC Collection, open the GeoCatalog web interface by selecting the GeoCatalog URI link on the Resource overview page in the Azure portal. After opening the web interface, select the Create collection button:
For more information about setting up your STAC collection, see the Create Collection from the Web Interface and Create Collection from the API quickstarts.
Ingest data into a STAC collection
Ingestion is the process of copying your data from an external data store to your GeoCatalog resource and cataloging it. During ingestion, the process converts data that isn't in a cloud-optimized format into a cloud-optimized format.
The recommended and most secure method for ingesting data is to store the data in Azure Blob Storage and provide read access to the Blob Storage container by using Managed Identity.
Warning
All data ingested into Planetary Computer Pro requires STAC Items.
Tip
To accelerate the creation of STAC Items, use the detailed tutorial and the open source tool called STAC Forge.
Get your data ready for ingestion
- Set up Managed Identity Access to your Azure Blob Storage
- Create STAC Items for your data
- Ingest your data a single item at a time or through bulk ingestion
Configure your STAC Collection for visualization
You can visualize ingested data in the built-in Data Explorer or through your own applications.
Note
You must configure a STAC Collection to support visualization before it appears in the Data Explorer.
Planetary Computer Pro's Tiler service requires configuration to properly display your ingested data. You can find all of these configuration options under the Configuration tab in the STAC Collection view:
Get your STAC Collection ready for visualization
Connect and build applications with your data
After you ingest data, you can use it in applications inside and outside of Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro.
If you configure data for visualization, you can search and view it through the Data Explorer tab.
You can also access data directly by using the GeoCatalog APIs. For details on establishing permissions for your applications, review the Application Authentication documentation.
Planetary Computer Pro supports connecting collections to ESRI's ArcGIS Pro Service to enable GIS-type work flows. You can also use QGIS to work with your GeoCatalog data in an open-source desktop GIS.
Get help
- Review the rest of the documentation for relevant articles
- Check out Microsoft Q&A to ask a question or find answers from others
- File a Support Ticket
Next steps
To get started with an end-to-end workflow, try this interactive tutorial: