Alaska Satellite Facility

ASF home graphic dish with satellite above and aurora in the sky

ASF Services – Data Discovery

Discover data at ASF

The ASF DAAC offers three ways for you to search and download data: on the web through Vertex, programmatically through the Python Search Module, and via ASF’s well-known SearchAPI. ASF is also available through Earthdata Search.

Have questions or need directions on how to get started?  ASF provides numerous ways for new users to get started, online documentation, tutorials, helpful videos, and our user support team is always available.

Screenshot of a Vertex search window

ASF Vertex Data Search

A powerful, yet easy-to-use graphical interface for creating searches, refining results, and downloading remote-sensing data from the ASF archive. Vertex also provides convenient tools for On Demand data processing via HyP3.

 Vertex is an open-source project available through GitHub.

Screenshot asf_search Python module

Python Search Module

The Python Search Module (asf_search) greatly simplifies the search and download processes, allowing users to find and download SAR data in just a few lines of Python. Available through PyPi and Conda, this module is targeted at Python users writing new tools, as well as users looking for an easier alternative to ASF’s SearchAPI.

Numerous search types are supported, including all those previously offered by ASF’s SearchAPI, as well as search workflows previously only available through Vertex, such as Baseline/InSAR searches.

Downloading data has also never been easier, as asf_search provides simple, built-in support for multiple authentication methods and parallel downloads.

ASF is actively developing asf_search as an open-source project. Let us know how we can improve your experience.

 

Resources for using asf_search

SAR Data in Python - Get to Know the ASF Search Module

The above video provides an introduction to the most common workflows performed using asf_search.

For users needing solutions other than Vertex and the Python Search Module, the SearchAPI is a publicly available REST API that provides access to the ASF data catalog. As such, it supports wget, curl, and most programming languages. Full documentation is available at https://docs.asf.alaska.edu/api/basics/.