RealEarth Access Options:

RealEarth offers three levels of access to its imagery: Free, Plus, and Pro.  For most users access is free.  However high volume users will experience watermarking of our products if they exceed certain thresholds of use.

RealEarth Free

RealEarth is driven by a highly reliable federated array of servers and virtual machines.  All users benefit from access to our full range of products in a variety of interfaces (browsers, apps, custom API use).  We support web services, restful endpoints, and several GIS-friendly options.  A majority of users will continue to enjoy simple visualization of our hundreds of dynamic products for free with no noticeable change or watermarks for up to 500 megapixels per rolling 24hr period and up to 512px by 512px composites.  Registered users will receive a higher threshold for watermark-free imagery of up to 1000 megapixels per 24hr when logged in and a 1024px by 1024px composite free of watermarks (register here for free).

Higher-volume users and users requesting higher-resolution images can continue to use RealEarth Free.  However if the appearance of watermarks becomes irritating or otherwise inconvenient, we also offer two levels of watermark-free access for a fee (for more about our philosophy on charging see this blog post):

RealEarth Plus

If your use of RealEarth results in watermarking with a message such as:

RealEarth by SSEC @ UW-Madison
www.ssec.wisc.edu/realearth
Pixel volume exceeded

Watermarks will appear when any one of the following conditions are met:

Watermark Text Reason Resolution/Price
Referer not allowed Unknown HTTP Referer

  • The imagery is being requested by a website that is not registered to a RealEarth User Account.
  • All requests for imagery from the website will count toward the registered user’s quotas.
 A registered Access Key must be attached to these requests
Pixel volume exceeded Pixel Volume

  • The cumulative number of per-product pixels requested has exceeded 500MP in a 24hr rolling window (1GP for logged-in users).
  • Pixel volume is dependent on the number of products layered into an image request.
 $15/mo per 1GP increment
Size limit exceeded Large Imagery

  • Our API allows users to request custom imagery sizes. Watermarks will appear for requests larger than 1024px (2048px for logged-in users) in either dimension.
  • Successive geographically adjacent image requests will cumulatively count toward the threshold.
 $500/mo removes the size limit
GeoTIFF not allowed Georeferenced/Navigated Imagery

  • Our API allows users to request special formats including GeoTIFFs, direct MapServer requests, or WMS. This feature is not available for free.
 $250/mo enables this feature

Login here to check your usage or make purchases.

Contact us for details: realearth@ssec.wisc.edu

RealEarth Pro

If your business or organization depends on timely, quality weather information, delivered as a web mapping service, consider a RealEarth Pro subscription or contract:

  • Watermark-free imagery with no volume threshold
  • Dedicated and exclusive access to RealEarth content
  • Custom configuration
  • Priority technical support
  • Possible Co-location with off-site Tier-III Facility

Contact us for details: realearth@ssec.wisc.edu