Introduction
Albatross is Terrabit's platform for ordering satellite imagery and elevation data over the places you care about, and for viewing and downloading what is delivered.
What Albatross does
- You draw or import areas: points or polygons marking where you want data.
- You order data over them. An order holds one or more deliverables: optical imagery or a digital elevation model (DEM), from archive captures or new captures tasked for you.
- Terrabit quotes, your approver accepts and Terrabit delivers. Each deliverable has its own status.
- You use the data. View map layers in the Data Catalog, download files or, when your workspace has map tiles enabled, stream imagery into GIS software such as QGIS or ArcGIS Pro through the Tiles API.
Albatross is invite-only: someone in your organisation or at Terrabit invites you to a workspace.
How the pieces fit together
Workspace (your organisation)
|-- People: members with a workspace role (Admin, Member, Viewer)
|-- Teams: groups of people, each with a list of default projects
|-- Settings: billing accounts, data formats, API keys, usage
'-- Projects (the unit of access; each member has a project role)
|-- Areas and area groups
|-- Orders
| '-- Deliverables
| |-- Map layers (viewed in the Data Catalog and as tiles)
| '-- Files to download
'-- Control data (files you upload for Terrabit)
| Building block | What it is |
|---|---|
| Workspace | Your organisation's space. You can belong to several. |
| Project | Holds areas, area groups, orders and control data. You see a project's work only if you are a member of it. |
| Team | A group of people that owns and grants nothing. Anyone added to it joins its default projects. |
| Area | A point or polygon with one home project. It can also be shown in other projects. |
| Area group | A folder of areas within a project. |
| Order | A request for data over areas in one project, with a billing account and a data format. |
| Deliverable | One product from one data source over one area, with its own status. |
| Map layer | A delivered raster or vector layer you view on the map. |
| Download | A delivered file, such as processed data, raw data or a report. |
| Control data | Order-related files you upload for Terrabit, removed once Terrabit retrieves them. Only when Terrabit enables it. |
| Data format | The file formats and datums your data is delivered in, chosen per order. |
| Billing account | The invoicing details an order is billed to. |
| API key | Lets GIS software load map tiles for chosen projects. |
Roles at a glance
You hold one workspace role, and one project role in each project you belong to.
| Workspace role | What it means |
|---|---|
| Admin | Manages users, settings, billing and every project's members and settings, but sees a project's areas, orders and data only after adding themselves to it. |
| Member | Creates projects; all other access comes from their projects. |
| Viewer | Read-only everywhere, whatever their project role. |
| Project role | What it means |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Sees everything in the project, changes nothing. |
| Editor | Creates and edits areas, drafts orders and uploads files. |
| Approver | Editor, plus approving orders. |
| Manager | Full control: settings, members, approvals, moves and deleting the project. |
See Roles and permissions for the full detail.
Where to go next
- How Albatross is organised: a tour of the web app.
- Your account: invitations, signing in, passwords and sessions.
- Quick start: from an empty project to delivered data, plus setting up a new workspace.