L2A Output

Dear Sen4Cap,

We observed that L3A separated LAI, FCOVER, FAPER into different files.Do you think it will be better if we put them in same file with different band? Just an idea.

Thanks and Regards,
Henry

Dear Henry,

Theoretically it could be done but it might complicate a little bit the things. As you maybe already noticed, generating the NDVI, LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER is configurable in the system. This means that you might choose not to generate, let’s say, FAPAR but you want LAI and FCOVER (or any combination of these 3 or none of them). This would mean to update into the product metadata, the description of the bands that are in the product. That would mean in turn, that anyone who wants to read the product will have to read first the metadata (to get the meaning of bands in the raster) and then the raster. Also, some processors might feel comfortable to quickly select only the rasters of a certain type (typically only LAI, or only FAPAR or FCOVER).
Also, I am not sure that in most of the cases, the indicators are all needed in the same time so reading and managing multiple bands in the same raster might introduces some delays in the processing.
Maybe there are some particular cases (for some processors outside Sen4CAP) where this configuration might be helpful but in for the processors in Sen4CAP there was no need of implementing it. Anyway, a processor needing such configuration can simply introduce a concatenate step before, according to its needs (with only the indicators it is interested in).
Also, I am not sure that this would bring too much improvements concerning the size of the products as they are already compressed and they occupy usually only few hundred (or even tenths) of MB (compared with S1 products that occupy several GB).

Regards,
Cosmin

Dear Cosmin,

It makes sense. Yes, configuring of generating output will be the best way to reduce the size of product then.

Appreciate your clarification.

Thanks and Regards,
Henry