
NASA, Japan Make ASTER Earth Data Available at No Cost - antouank
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-japan-make-aster-earth-data-available-at-no-cost
======
loudmax
I work with Terra's ground based flight crew. I don't know much about ASTER
specifically, but most of the instruments on Terra have a very wide field of
cover and gather light in bands beyond of our spectrum of vision. The data
primarily of interest to climatologists and scientists. You won't be able to
pick out cars parked on our street in these images.

Historical and current data from some of Terra's other instruments is
available on Worldview here:
[https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/](https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/)

------
poorUXrage
How exactly do you download the data? I am looking at the page the article
linked to and I do not see any intelligible download link, just some factoids
about the craft. Is there a giant tarball I can slurp down. How big is the
data set anyway?

~~~
hamsternipples
took a bit to find but here's the link:
[https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/data_access/data_pool](https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/data_access/data_pool)

------
buckhx
I hadn't heard of this project before, but this sounds pretty awesome. I
wonder what the fidelity is and if it could be used to fill in the height tag
missing from lots of OSM buildings.

~~~
vilhelm_s
Jonathan de Ferranti has a webpage reviewing different digital elevation maps
([http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/reviews.html#aster](http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/reviews.html#aster)
). It sounds like he was not super impressed with the ASTER height data (the
review is from 2011):

> Despite the nominal 1" resolution, the true resolution is lower than 3"
> (downsampled from 1") SRTM data, and there are very many pits, bumps and
> mole runs. So far the tallest spike that I have found is 3,844 metres, at N
> 60�43' E 22�02', in south west Finland, and the deepest pit is about 3,000
> metres, in tile N27E088, containing cells below 5,300m close to where
> Kangchenjunga's main summit ridge should rise to 8586m. Generally, artifacts
> are visible in almost all areas of low relief. Coastlines are not at all
> accurate; lakes have not been flattened and are particularly badly affected
> by artifacts. Major errors can be found in most areas of very high relief,
> But in between, some areas of medium to high relief have been well done and
> are almost artifact free. My early impression is that, for areas where
> topographic coverage is poor, these data could be separated out for use to
> improve DEM data, including both mountain and desert voidfill data, on this
> and other sites. At one time I thought it may also be possible to flatten
> the low relief artifacts to provide data that will improve coverage of the
> plains of North Eurasia, but after further consideration I doubt that this
> will be possible.

