Working with Sensor Bundles

This chapter documents supported sensor bundle families and common workflows.

Bundle APIs abstract away family-specific packaging details so you can focus on analysis intent: identify useful channels, inspect quality assets, and produce consistent derived outputs. The conceptual goal is to normalize early-stage ingestion across heterogeneous providers while preserving enough provenance to keep downstream interpretation defensible.

Supported Families

• Generic auto-detect: read_bundle(...)
• Landsat: read_landsat(...)
• Sentinel-1 SAFE: read_sentinel1(...)
• Sentinel-2 SAFE: read_sentinel2(...)
• PlanetScope: read_planetscope(...)
• ICEYE: read_iceye(...)
• DIMAP: read_dimap(...)
• Maxar/WorldView: read_maxar_worldview(...)
• RADARSAT-2: read_radarsat2(...)
• RCM: read_rcm(...)

Common Inspection Pattern

Start with this inspection sequence to quickly understand what content is available before choosing analysis-specific channels.

import whitebox_workflows as wb

wbe = wb.WbEnvironment()
b = wbe.read_bundle('BUNDLE_ROOT')

print('family:', b.family)
print('bands:', b.list_band_keys())
print('measurements:', b.list_measurement_keys())
print('qa:', b.list_qa_keys())
print('assets:', b.list_asset_keys())

Family-Specific Examples

These examples show the same workflow shape across different providers: load, inspect keys, read representative channels, then generate a preview or derived artifact.

Sentinel-2

Use this when building optical workflows from known band identifiers.

s2 = wbe.read_sentinel2('S2_SCENE.SAFE')
red = s2.read_band('B04')
nir = s2.read_band('B08')
rgb = s2.true_colour_composite(wbe, output_path='s2_true_colour.tif')

Landsat

Use this when scene metadata and quality indicators are part of ingestion logic.

ls = wbe.read_landsat('LC09_SCENE')
print(ls.processing_level(), ls.cloud_cover_percent())
preview = ls.read_band(ls.list_band_keys()[0])

Sentinel-1 / SAR Families

Use this for SAR measurement inspection and quick visual QA composites.

s1 = wbe.read_sentinel1('S1_SCENE.SAFE')
print(s1.polarizations())
meas = s1.read_measurement(s1.list_measurement_keys()[0])
false_colour = s1.false_colour_composite(wbe, output_path='s1_false_colour.tif')

PlanetScope / ICEYE / DIMAP / Maxar-WorldView / RADARSAT-2 / RCM

This loop pattern is useful for multi-provider pipelines that need consistent intake checks.

for loader, path in [
    (wbe.read_planetscope, 'PLANETSCOPE_SCENE'),
    (wbe.read_iceye, 'ICEYE_SCENE'),
    (wbe.read_dimap, 'DIMAP_SCENE'),
    (wbe.read_maxar_worldview, 'MAXAR_SCENE'),
    (wbe.read_radarsat2, 'RADARSAT2_SCENE'),
    (wbe.read_rcm, 'RCM_SCENE'),
]:
    bundle = loader(path)
    print(bundle.family, bundle.bundle_root)

Recommended Workflow

1. Open with family-specific reader when known.
2. Inspect key sets (list_*_keys).
3. Read representative channels.
4. Build previews/composites for QA.
5. Persist derived rasters and document source family + key choices.

Calibration Contract Notes (Landsat/Sentinel-2)

Remote-sensing radiometric and thermal tools in WbW-Python now rely on a standardized sensor-bundle calibration contract in wbraster.

• Sentinel-2 bundle metadata provides quantification values used for DN to TOA reflectance scaling.
• Landsat bundles provide typed per-band reflectance and thermal constants used in TOA reflectance and LST workflows.

For best results, keep original SAFE/MTL metadata with scene rasters when moving or staging bundle data for analysis.

Sensor Bundle Object Method Reference

Common bundle properties such as family and bundle_root are omitted here so the tables stay focused on callable Bundle methods.

Key Discovery and Data Access

Scene and Platform Metadata

Derived Preview Products