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STAC browser

A three-level picker over any STAC catalogue or API registered on the Services tab. Walks you from Catalogue → Collection → Item → Asset.

What ends up in your config

The STAC catalogue is a browsing aid only. When you select an asset, the config stores its resolved direct URL (COG, GeoJSON, FlatGeoBuf, CSV) — not a reference to the catalogue. You can delete the STAC service entry afterwards without breaking layers built from it.

Open the browser

In a layer card's data source form, pick From Service and select your STAC service. The browser opens at the catalogue's root collections list.

STAC browser at the catalogue root showing a Search collections field and several collections including AirQuality, Marine heatwaves, and LSTM-like Land Surface Temperature (CHILL-Y)

The header shows:

  • The catalogue name and a STAC type badge (STAC API Catalog, STAC Catalogue, etc.).
  • The catalogue URL — clickable, opens the live JSON in a new tab.
  • A Search collections field.
  • The collection count (e.g. Showing 85 collections).

Drill into a collection

Click a collection to load its items. The header updates with the collection title, item count, and a back button to the catalogue.

STAC browser inside AirQuality collection showing 19 items, each with a View Assets button and an Add All Filtered Items button at the bottom

You can search items, then either:

  • Click View Assets on a single item to see its assets, or
  • Click Add All Filtered Items (n) to add every visible item as a separate data source — useful for time-series.

Pick an asset

Items contain one or more assets (the actual file URLs). The asset view lists them with format badges, MIME type, and size.

STAC browser inside an item showing two assets — a Thumbnail PNG and an SO2 Concentration Map for May 2025 PNG — each with format and size, plus an Add All Supported Assets button

  • Toggle Show only supported formats to hide previews and metadata files.
  • Click Select on any asset to populate the data source form.

Format detection

Each asset's format is detected from the actual MIME type returned by HEAD when possible, falling back to the extension. Supported formats match the rest of the builder: COG, GeoJSON, FlatGeoBuf, CSV; PNG/JPEG appear as previews only.

You can paste a direct STAC item URL or an openEO results URL into the browser's URL field at any level — the builder figures out where in the catalogue tree to open. See the STAC direct links reference for the supported shapes.

Tips

  • Catalogues with thousands of collections are paginated server-side. Use the search field rather than scrolling.
  • If a collection's items take a long time to list, the underlying STAC API may be rate-limiting. Filter by date upstream where possible.
  • Signed URLs are common in commercial STAC catalogues; the builder stores the base URL and re-signs at view time when supported.

Viewing STAC metadata

Click the (i) button on a STAC dataset row to open STAC Metadata. It has three tabs:

  • Collection: title, description, licence, extents, keywords and the asset types the collection offers.
  • Item: the single item, or the first item returned by your filters, with its date, extent, key properties and the list of assets.
  • Asset: details for the selected asset, plus a button that opens the COG or FlatGeobuf file inspector.

This view is read-only. Temporary or signed file links are never saved to your configuration.

Drawing the area on a map

The Bounding box filter dialog includes a small map. Choose Draw area and drag a rectangle, or pan to an area and click Use current map view; the West/South/East/North boxes stay in sync with the rectangle. Only bbox=W,S,E,N is saved in the address. Queryables named geometry describe the item footprint — spatial filtering on them uses this bbox filter.

Property filters

For STAC items endpoints, + Add property filter lists the properties the collection publishes in its queryables response (for example eo:cloud_cover). Choose a property, a condition suited to its type and a value; each rule appears as a badge and rules are combined with AND. Test filter runs the query once and reports how many items match, or the server's error.

Filters are saved only in the data source URL as filter=<CQL2 text>&filter-lang=cql2-text. If a collection does not publish queryables, enter the property name and type manually. Filters the editor cannot split into simple rules (for example ones using OR) are shown as a single Custom filter that you can edit as raw text.

The query editor offers a Query method choice between the Items endpoint (.../collections/{id}/items?…, the default) and the Search endpoint (.../search?collections={id}&…). Switching rewrites the address and keeps every filter — bbox, datetime, limit and property filters — intact. Some servers only evaluate property filters on the search endpoint, so if a filter has no effect on the result set, switch to Search endpoint and use Test filter to confirm. A pasted /search?collections=… address is recognised directly. Searches spanning several collections (collections=a,b) are recognised but cannot be switched back to the items endpoint, which serves a single collection.