Scientific Image Processing Toolbox

SNAP stands for Sentinels Application Platform and is a common software architecture on which a collection of free open source toolboxes for the scientific exploitation of Earth Observation missions is available. SNAP is an ESA development, technically lead by Brockmann Consult, and available through the ESA Website. SNAP supports the scientific exploitation for the ERS-ENVISAT missions, the Sentinels 1/2/3 missions, Proba-V, and a range of National and Third Party missions. SNAP contains the functionalities of historical toolboxes such as ENVISAT BEAM, NEST and Orfeo Toolbox that were developed over the last years.

SNAP is addressing environment scientists, value adding companies, students and teachers. SNAP comprises an app for interactive work with the Earth Observation data (SNAP Desktop), the Graph Processing Framework to create and execute recurring workflows, a command line interface, as well as programming interfaces for python and Java.

Thus, SNAP can be used for interactive image visualisation and analysis, automation of processing chains, use of SNAP operators in own software and extension of SNAP with new functionality. All SNAP functions are implemented as plug-ins and are available from all above interfaces, so that interactive exploration can be further standardised and automated through the GPF and command line interface.

SNAP has built-in parallelisation and can easily be deployed in cluster environments. It integrated perfectly with Hadoop and specifically the Calvalus Earth Observation Processing System developed by Brockmann Consult.

SNAP has a large user community of more than 10.000 people globally. SNAP is continuously developed. A lively active forum allows users to interact, solve problems and exchange findings. Training courses are offered by ESA and Brockmann Consult.