This past winter, Landsat 8 was put into orbit. The last week of April, it began streaming down useable data. Darin has been working feverishly to get ADMS processing this new data. There have been several changes in the new Landsat 8 data. We hope to have a release of ADMS processing this data by mid-July. Two items that you really need to be aware of, we are moving from 8 bit to 16 bit imagery. May mean very little to you, but from the software stand point this is a very large change!! The second item is the file sizes of your downloads have gone up by a factor of 5.5 x larger. We still need to be downloading the “LEVEL 1 PRODUCT” from the USGS. So it is going to take a little longer to download the data, it is going to take up more space and it may take a little more PC horsepower to process the data. We are very excited to get going with this new data!!! Let us know if you have any questions.

LandSat 5 & 7 (TM & ETM+)

–          8 bit images

–          Values from 0-255

–          File sizes – roughly 150 mb to 190 mb per image

–          7 bands of raw data  (8 bands – LS7 ETM+)

–          30 meter resolution / band (120 meter on band 6)

–          Fairly broad spectrum band widths (see chart below)

LandSat 8 (OLI)

–          12 bit images distributed as 16 bit data

–          Values from 0-4,095

–          File sizes – roughly 920 mb to 980 mb per image

–          11 bands of raw data

–          30 meter resolution / band (100 meter on band 10 & 11)

–          Tighter band widths (should make sharper data)

More information on the “Frequently Asked” link

USGS FAQ link – https://landsat.usgs.gov/ldcm_vs_previous.php