Enhancement proposal: include guides for accessing DEA using both QGIS and ESRI software

[robbibt]

Background

In Knowledge Hub, we currently do a pretty good job of catering to our QGIS users, e.g.:

• https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/guides/setup/gis/web_coverage_service/#how-to-connect-to-wcs-using-qgis
• https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/guides/setup/gis/web_map_service/#how-to-connect-to-wms-using-qgis

However, many DEA users use ESRI software like ArcGIS Pro, which has its own different ways of accessing our data. ArcGIS Pro users currently need to work out how to load our data themselves, which can lead to a frustrating user experience (or inability to access DEA data at all).

Similarly, we currently don't provide guides on accessing DEA data via STAC and AWS in either QGIS or ArcGIS Pro, despite these being powerful and easy ways to access DEA data.

Proposed improvement

It would be extremely valuable to provide matching instructions for accessing DEA data using QGIS and ESRI software wherever appropriate. Ideally, I would love to update our docs to include subsections like this:

# SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogue (STAC)
## How to load data in Python using `odc-stac`
## How to load data using STAC in QGIS
## How to load data using STAC in ArcGIS Pro

# Amazon Web Services (AWS)
## How to load data from AWS using QGIS
## How to load data from AWS using ArcGIS Pro

# Web Map Service (WMS)
## How to connect to WMS using QGIS
## How to connect to WMS using ArcGIS Pro

# Web Coverage Service (WCS)
## How to connect to WCS using QGIS
## How to connect to WCS using ArcGIS Pro

Future work could also involve documenting how to load DEA data using other programming languages, e.g. R:

# SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogue (STAC)
## How to load data in Python using `odc-stac`
## How to load data in R using `gdalcubes`
## How to load data using STAC in QGIS
## How to load data using STAC in ArcGIS Pro

[robbibt]

Interested in your thoughts @benji-glitsos-ga and @CEKrause - ESRI support is probably once of the largest gaps in our current documentation, but not too difficult to fix!

[benji-glitsos-ga]

I really like the idea and the heading structure you've used.

I'm not sure if we really need to document R though, unless DEA provides our own R tools. Otherwise, I can maybe add one line under the Python example that says e.g. You can also access the data in R using the load method.

[robbibt]

It's definitely a lower priority than QGIS and ArcGIS Pro documentation, but R is very widely used by many of our users (particularly in academia). We're currently missing out on supporting those users, even though R can integrate really nicely with tools like STAC for loading and analysing our data: https://gist.github.com/robbibt/d4ef78d526281196f68e0186b50d48d2

(in the long term, I'd like to add a single "Loading DEA data in R using STAC" Jupyter notebook to DEA Notebooks, which we could then point to via your suggested one line)

[benji-glitsos-ga]

I think "Loading DEA data in R using STAC" will be a really useful article.

Also, on second thought, I've seen most documentation in the tech industry uses code examples in multiple languages. I think adding R examples alongside the existing Python examples will be a good idea.

In the Knowledge Hub user guides, we can even use a 'tabbed' interface for providing both of these code examples. In the Notebooks, 'tabs' aren't possible but I can help organise the content so it is manageable.