ACOLITE Documentation

Disclaimer

These documents were generated by J. Xavier Prochaska using Claude Code (claude.ai/code). They are primarily for his own usage, but you are welcome to use them too.

Summary

ACOLITE is an atmospheric correction system developed by RBINS (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) for aquatic applications of satellite remote sensing. It implements the Dark Spectrum Fitting (DSF) algorithm for converting Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance to surface reflectance, optimized for coastal and inland water applications.

Key Features

• Image-based atmospheric correction - The DSF algorithm requires no external atmospheric inputs

• Multi-sensor support - Process data from 50+ satellite sensors with automatic format detection

• Water quality parameters - Derive chlorophyll, turbidity, TSM, and other products

• Flexible output - NetCDF (primary), GeoTIFF, and PNG map outputs

• Thermal processing - TACT module for Landsat thermal band processing

• Adjacency correction - RAdCor physics-based correction for terrain effects

Supported Sensors

ACOLITE supports a wide range of satellite sensors including:

• Multispectral: Landsat 5/7/8/9, Sentinel-2 A/B, Sentinel-3 OLCI, VIIRS, PlanetScope, WorldView, Pleiades

• Hyperspectral: PRISMA, DESIS, EnMAP, EMIT, HICO, CHRIS, Hyperion

• Geostationary: GOES ABI, Himawari AHI, SEVIRI, GOCI-2

See Supported Sensors for a complete list.

Contents

Getting Started

• Installation
  • Requirements
  • Quick Install
  • Using environment.yml
  • Dependencies
  • Look-Up Tables (LUTs)
  • EarthData Account Setup
  • TACT Installation (Optional)
  • Verifying Installation
  • Troubleshooting
• Quick Start
  • Basic Processing (CLI)
  • Using a Settings File
  • GUI Mode
  • Python API
  • Subsetting by Region
  • Batch Processing
  • Output Files
  • Reading Output Data
  • Common Settings
  • Next Steps

User Guide

• User Guide
  • Processing Pipeline Overview
  • Dark Spectrum Fitting (DSF)
  • Region Selection
  • Ancillary Data
  • DEM and Pressure
  • Sun Glint Correction
  • Adjacency Correction (RAdCor)
  • Masking
  • Output Options
  • Reprojection
  • Thermal Processing (TACT)
  • Sensor-Specific Settings
  • Processing Examples
  • Troubleshooting
• Settings Reference
  • Input/Output Settings
  • Region Selection
  • Atmospheric Correction
  • Tiled Processing
  • Gas Transmittance
  • Ancillary Data
  • DEM Settings
  • Sun Glint Settings
  • Adjacency Correction
  • L2W Parameters and Masking
  • NetCDF Options
  • GeoTIFF Export
  • RGB and Map Settings
  • Reprojection
  • TACT (Thermal) Settings
  • Sensor-Specific Settings
• Supported Sensors
  • Multispectral Sensors
  • Hyperspectral Sensors
  • Geostationary Sensors
  • Thermal Sensors
  • Chinese Sensors
  • Other Sensors
  • Input Format Detection
  • Sensor-Specific Defaults
  • Data Sources
  • Adding New Sensors

Reference

• API Reference
  • Core Processing Functions
  • GEM Class
  • Atmospheric Correction Module
  • Output Module
  • Shared Utilities
  • Global Objects
  • Example Workflows
• Water Quality Parameters
  • Specifying Parameters
  • Chlorophyll-a Algorithms
  • Turbidity Algorithms
  • Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM/TSM)
  • QAA-Based Products
  • Spectral Products
  • Indices
  • Other Algorithms
  • Thermal Products
  • Custom Parameters
  • Parameter Masking
  • Output Units
  • Example Processing

References

The Dark Spectrum Fitting (DSF) algorithm is described in:

• Vanhellemont and Ruddick 2018, Atmospheric correction of metre-scale optical satellite data for inland and coastal water applications

• Vanhellemont 2019, Adaptation of the dark spectrum fitting atmospheric correction for aquatic applications of the Landsat and Sentinel-2 archives

Support

• Forum: ACOLITE Forum

• GitHub: acolite/acolite

License

ACOLITE is provided by RBINS as an experimental tool, without explicit or implied warranty. Use of the program is at your own discretion and risk.

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page