How to Use the Site

Remote Sensing Labs is a concept-first learning site about turning satellite and aerial imagery into understanding. This guide describes how the material fits together and where to begin, rather than assuming you will read it front to back.

How the material is organized

The site is designed around durable remote sensing concepts — the ideas that stay true regardless of which software you use — and then connects those concepts to real data, workflows, and engineering practice. The What is Remote Sensing Labs? page lays out that intended structure in three connected layers: concepts as the foundation (image structure, resolution and coordinate systems, spectral bands and indices, classification, and time series), data and workflows that apply those ideas to open imagery, and engineering practice that makes the analysis reproducible and scalable.

Google Earth Engine is treated as one implementation track among several — a fast way to try a concept in the browser — rather than the identity of the site. Where it helps, the material also points toward Python (rasterio, xarray, geopandas) and open, cloud-native data, so the concept stays in focus rather than any single platform.

Where to start

Pick an entry point by what you are trying to do rather than reading linearly:

• New to remote sensing. Follow the numbered reading order in Getting Started. It begins with how an image is structured and ends with a complete applied workflow, without depending on any one tool.
• Already work with imagery. Browse Core Concepts or Applied Workflows for the pages closest to the problem in front of you. The orientation page explains how each layer supports a different kind of analysis task.
• Questions or corrections. The Contact page is the place to reach out.

What to expect as you read

Treat concept pages as the durable core: they are meant to remain useful as tools change. Implementation details — Earth Engine, Python, STAC catalogs, desktop GIS — are shown as tracks layered on top of a concept, so you can follow the idea first and then choose how to run it.