Earthdata Cloud Browser ‐ Save a Custom User Region - seadas/seadas-toolbox GitHub Wiki

This SeaDAS tutorial demonstrates how to create and save your own custom user regions which will selectable in the 'Earthdata Cloud Browser GUI' every time you run SeaDAS.

[!NOTE] This tutorial is based on SeaDAS 11.0.0. Earlier SeaDAS versions do not support this feature.

Specific Objectives of this Demo:

  • In the Earthdata Cloud Browser GUI create a custom user region 'Arctic Circle: Iceland-Norway' which will be available as a selectable region entry in the 'User Regions' selector.

  • The specific bounds for this 'Arctic Circle: Iceland-Norway' region are:

    • North = 70.0°N
    • South = 60.0°N
    • West = 25.0°W
    • East = 10.0°E

$${\color{black}Arctic \space Circle: \space Iceland-Norway}$$

 

$${\color{black}Earthdata \space Cloud \space GUI: \space with \space 'User \space Regions' \space selector}$$

 

[!NOTE] When a region is selected with the 'User Regions' or 'Preset Regions' selector, it will auto-populate the 'North', 'South', 'West' and 'East' fields with the region's bounding box criteria.

Demo Start:

Step 1. Open the Earthdata Cloud Data Browser

  1. Select 'Menu > Earthdata-Cloud > OB_CLOUD Data Browser'.

  2. If the selector 'User Regions' does not appear in the Earthdata Cloud GUI, go to Step 2 otherwise skip ahead to Step 3.

 

$${\color{black}Earthdata \space Cloud \space GUI: \space with \space 'User \space Regions' \space selector \space not \space included}$$

 

Step 2. Add the User Regions Selector

  1. To add the selector 'User Regions' to the GUI, go to the Earthdata Cloud Preferences GUI.

    • (For Mac, Linux): Select 'Menu > SeaDAS > Settings > Seadas-Toolbox >Earthdata-Cloud'.
    • (For Windows): Select 'Menu > Tools > Options > Seadas-Toolbox > Earthdata-Cloud'.

  2. Check the box 'Include 'User Regions' selector'.

  3. Click 'OK'

 

$${\color{black}Earthdata \space Cloud \space Preferences \space GUI: \space include \space 'User \space Regions' \space selector}$$

 

[!NOTE] Preferences are applied when the Earthdata Cloud Data Browser GUI is opened. So if your Earthdata Cloud Data Browser GUI is already opened, you will need to close it and reopen it in order for the 'User Regions' selector to appear.

 

Step 3. Add the New Region to the 'User Regions' Selector

  1. There is no GUI editor for adding and removing entries for the 'User Regions' selector. But this can be done manually by editing the following file: '~/.seadas/auxdata/regions/user_regions.txt'.

  2. Add the following line to the file: Arctic Circle: Iceland-Norway = 70.0°N, 60.0°N, 25.0°W, 10.0°E

    • The formatting is: Name = North, South, West, East
    • The coordinates can be space and/or comma delimited.

  3. Save the file.

 

[!WARNING] Make sure that your editor doesn't add any extra formatting to the file. The file '~/.seadas/auxdata/regions/user_regions.txt' needs to remain a plain text file.

 

Step 4. Close and Reopen the Earthdata Cloud Data Browser

  1. To re-initialize the 'User Regions' selector you will need to close and reopen the Earthdata Cloud Browser GUI.

 

$${\color{black}Earthdata \space Cloud \space GUI: \space with \space 'User \space Regions' \space selector \space not \space included}$$

 

[!TIP] After adding your region, verify it by selecting it in the GUI to see whether the fields 'North', 'South', 'West' and 'East' are correctly populated. Be aware that these fields get converted to a signed decimal format. So in example, an entry in the '~/.seadas/auxdata/regions/user_regions.txt' whose 'West' component is '77°30′00″W' would appear in the 'West' field as '-77.5'.

Note May 19, 2025 is a good scene for PACE OCI