GRSS VEDA: the new, powerful and user-friendly geospatial platform for the GRSS community
Written by: Celina Anael Farías & Jerika Chung
Every new geospatial project starts with a familiar challenge: finding the right data. Whether studying floods, monitoring forests, tracking urban growth, or developing AI models, the first step is often navigating an increasingly growing ocean of Earth observation products and continuously asking: “Is this dataset actually useful for my analysis?“. VEDA can help you answer this question in a matter of minutes.
What is OpenVEDA and GRSS VEDA exactly?
GRSS Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) is an advanced platform designed to streamline the discovery, access, and analysis of Earth observation data for the GRSS community. Adapted from NASA’s OpenVEDA infrastructure, GRSS VEDA empowers researchers, engineers, and data scientists to leverage large-scale geospatial datasets alongside machine learning and data-analysis tools, while communicating their findings using data-driven storytelling.
Both platforms work to bridge the gap between large, complex datasets and cloud computing, allowing users to explore datasets directly in the cloud via an interactive interface, rather than downloading gigabytes. To find out more about the story behind NASA’s openVEDA and GRSS, you can click [here].
From the Data Stories to the Data Catalog and the Analysis Hub, GRSS VEDA offers a great variety of capabilities aimed to enhance the work of both the scientific and the professional GRSS community. Together, these three components transform GRSS VEDA from a data portal into a complete cloud-native ecosystem for Earth observation science.
A Walk Through VEDA Exploration Tool and Data Catalogue
Every new geospatial project starts with a familiar challenge: finding the right data. Whether studying floods, monitoring forests, tracking urban growth, or developing AI models, the first step is often navigating an increasingly growing ocean of Earth observation products and continuously asking: “Is this dataset actually useful for my analysis?“. VEDA can help you answer this question in a matter of minutes.
The Exploration Tool provides the primary interface for discovering and interacting with the datasets available in GRSS VEDA. Through a single web application, users can browse satellite products and geospatial datasets from leading organizations such as NASA, ESA, ECMWF, and other contributors without navigating multiple repositories or data portals. The interface is directly connected to the GRSS VEDA Dataset Catalog, allowing users to search available datasets, inspect metadata, preview imagery, and quickly evaluate whether a product is suitable for their application.
The growing Dataset Catalog available for GRSS VEDA is powered by a SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC), an open standard that makes geospatial datasets easier to discover, access, and integrate across applications. Datasets are ingested into the platform in cloud-optimized formats such as Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) and Zarr, allowing users to visualize and analyze large datasets directly in the cloud without downloading terabytes of data. This standards-based architecture also enables interoperability with other tools and services, making it easier for researchers to incorporate authoritative datasets into their existing workflows.
Building upon this cloud-native architecture, the Exploration Tool enables users to visualize datasets interactively and perform a first-level analysis directly in the browser. Visualization parameters, including color maps and value ranges, can be customized to emphasize different characteristics of the data. The platform also supports multi-layer visualization, side-by-side image comparison, and time-series generation, allowing users to rapidly assess spatial and temporal patterns in their study area before moving to more advanced analyses.
Feature Spotlight: Explore Earth Observation Through Interactive Data Stories
What if your research could be experienced instead of simply read? One of the most compelling features of GRSS VEDA platform is its Data Stories capability, a cloud-native environment that combines interactive maps, Earth observation datasets, narrative text, and visual analytics into a single, shareable experience. Rather than relying on static figures in a paper or presentation, Data Stories allow readers to pan, zoom, compare layers, and interact directly with the data, making complex geospatial science more engaging, reproducible, and accessible. This capability brings modern scientific storytelling to the IEEE GRSS community while lowering barriers to discovering and communicating remote sensing research.
One of the first examples available on the platform is “How Gold Mines Alter Local Environments”, a story developed by a student-led team from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The story explores the environmental impacts of artisanal and small-scale gold mining across regions in South America and Africa, combining multiple Earth observation datasets into an interactive narrative. Readers can explore satellite imagery, examine spatial patterns, and better understand how remotely sensed data can be used to investigate real-world environmental challenges. Rather than simply presenting results, the story demonstrates how cloud-native visualization can help communicate the science behind them.
Data Stories transform scientific results from static content into interactive experiences, allowing readers not only to read about the science, but also to explore it themselves. Researchers, educators, students and geospatial professionals will be able to disseminate results, demonstrate prototype applications, and communicate Earth observation analyses through interactive, cloud-native environments, complementing traditional scientific publications.
Going Further Beyond: the GRSS VEDA Analysis Hub
Beyond dataset exploration and interactive Data Stories, the GRSS VEDA ecosystem provides a dedicated environment for large-scale geospatial analysis through the GRSS VEDA Analysis Hub. Built upon cloud-hosted Jupyter notebooks, the Analysis Hub enables researchers and practitioners to develop custom analyses, prototype algorithms, and build reproducible workflows using familiar Python-based geospatial tools.
The Analysis Hub follows a simple principle: instead of moving the data to your computer, it moves your computation to where the data lives. While one of the most important limitations in geospatial science is the lack of local storage or computing resources, GRSS VEDA breaks the barrier by allowing users to launch cloud-hosted Jupyter notebooks and work not only with the datasets already available in the GRSS VEDA Catalog, but also with local datasets, which can be uploaded to the platform by the user. The environment supports Python and has access to all the widely adopted geospatial libraries and GeoAI toolboxes, allowing researchers to process, visualize, and analyze Earth observation data using familiar scientific workflows.
This cloud-native approach not only favours data science performance, but it also represents a step forward to reproducible and collaborative science. Notebook-based workflows can be shared, adapted, and reproduced by other users, ensuring that analyses can be validated and extended without requiring complex local software installations or data transfers.
In conclusion, why does GRSS VEDA matter to GRSS Members?
GRSS VEDA is more than an open geospatial platform: it is a community-driven ecosystem that was tailored to support the global IEEE GRSS community. By its integrated capabilities, VEDA is thought to revolutionize the way professionals/scientists from this community discover, analyze and communicate Earth observation research. Among the many benefits that VEDA brings to the GRSS community, we can find:
- An integrated cloud-based analysis environment that provides the computational resources from traditional data processing to entire GeoAI and machine learning workflows without requiring any specialized local hardware/software or large data downloads.
- The possibility to design reproducible research workflows, easily transferable through shared notebooks, data stories and analysis pipelines.
- Access to member-focused resources, including cloud computing credits to support research projects, educational initiatives, workshops, and student activities.
- A collaboration hub between researchers, students, educators and practitioners at a worldwide level.
- Easy access to community-contributed content including datasets, models, tutorials and applications.
- A seamless integration with GRSS programs, connecting Technical Committees, Chapters, conferences, educational initiatives, and other Society activities through a common collaborative platform.
As the platform grows, GRSS VEDA will continue expanding its catalog of Earth observation datasets, interactive applications, and community-contributed content. Researchers will be able to showcase prototype products, educators can develop engaging classroom materials, and students can explore Earth observation data through hands-on, interactive experiences. Whether you’re looking for your next dataset, sharing a new scientific product, or simply exploring innovative ways to communicate your research, GRSS VEDA provides a collaborative environment built by and for the GRSS community
