ImageCollection Overview

An ImageCollection is a stack or sequence of images.

Construct from a collection ID

An ImageCollection can be loaded by pasting an Earth Engine asset ID into the ImageCollection constructor. You can find ImageCollection IDs in the data catalog. For example, to load the Sentinel-2 surface reflectance collection:

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var sentinelCollection = ee.ImageCollection('COPERNICUS/S2_SR');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

sentinel_collection = ee.ImageCollection('COPERNICUS/S2_SR')

This collection contains every Sentinel-2 image in the public catalog. There are a lot. Usually you want to filter the collection as shown here or here.

Construct from an image list

The constructor ee.ImageCollection() or the convenience method ee.ImageCollection.fromImages() create image collections from lists of images. You can also create new image collections by merging existing collections. For example:

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// Create arbitrary constant images.
var constant1 = ee.Image(1);
var constant2 = ee.Image(2);

// Create a collection by giving a list to the constructor.
var collectionFromConstructor = ee.ImageCollection([constant1, constant2]);
print('collectionFromConstructor: ', collectionFromConstructor);

// Create a collection with fromImages().
var collectionFromImages = ee.ImageCollection.fromImages(
  [ee.Image(3), ee.Image(4)]);
print('collectionFromImages: ', collectionFromImages);

// Merge two collections.
var mergedCollection = collectionFromConstructor.merge(collectionFromImages);
print('mergedCollection: ', mergedCollection);

// Create a toy FeatureCollection
var features = ee.FeatureCollection(
  [ee.Feature(null, {foo: 1}), ee.Feature(null, {foo: 2})]);

// Create an ImageCollection from the FeatureCollection
// by mapping a function over the FeatureCollection.
var images = features.map(function(feature) {
  return ee.Image(ee.Number(feature.get('foo')));
});

// Print the resultant collection.
print('Image collection: ', images);

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

# Create arbitrary constant images.
constant_1 = ee.Image(1)
constant_2 = ee.Image(2)

# Create a collection by giving a list to the constructor.
collection_from_constructor = ee.ImageCollection([constant_1, constant_2])
display('Collection from constructor:', collection_from_constructor)

# Create a collection with fromImages().
collection_from_images = ee.ImageCollection.fromImages(
    [ee.Image(3), ee.Image(4)]
)
display('Collection from images:', collection_from_images)

# Merge two collections.
merged_collection = collection_from_constructor.merge(collection_from_images)
display('Merged collection:', merged_collection)

# Create a toy FeatureCollection
features = ee.FeatureCollection(
    [ee.Feature(None, {'foo': 1}), ee.Feature(None, {'foo': 2})]
)

# Create an ImageCollection from the FeatureCollection
# by mapping a function over the FeatureCollection.
images = features.map(lambda feature: ee.Image(ee.Number(feature.get('foo'))))

# Display the resultant collection.
display('Image collection:', images)

Note that in this example an ImageCollection is created by mapping a function that returns an Image over a FeatureCollection. Learn more about mapping in the Mapping over an ImageCollection section. Learn more about feature collections from the FeatureCollection section.

Construct from a COG list

Create an ImageCollection from GeoTiffs in Cloud Storage. For example:

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// All the GeoTiffs are in this folder.
var uriBase = 'gs://gcp-public-data-landsat/LC08/01/001/002/' +
    'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2/';

// List of URIs, one for each band.
var uris = ee.List([
  uriBase + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B2.TIF',
  uriBase + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B3.TIF',
  uriBase + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B4.TIF',
  uriBase + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B5.TIF',
]);

// Make a collection from the list of images.
var images = uris.map(ee.Image.loadGeoTIFF);
var collection = ee.ImageCollection(images);

// Get an RGB image from the collection of bands.
var rgb = collection.toBands().rename(['B2', 'B3', 'B4', 'B5']);
Map.centerObject(rgb);
Map.addLayer(rgb, {bands: ['B4', 'B3', 'B2'], min: 0, max: 20000}, 'rgb');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

# All the GeoTiffs are in this folder.
uri_base = (
    'gs://gcp-public-data-landsat/LC08/01/001/002/'
    + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2/'
)

# List of URIs, one for each band.
uris = ee.List([
    uri_base + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B2.TIF',
    uri_base + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B3.TIF',
    uri_base + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B4.TIF',
    uri_base + 'LC08_L1GT_001002_20160817_20170322_01_T2_B5.TIF',
])

# Make a collection from the list of images.
images = uris.map(lambda uri: ee.Image.loadGeoTIFF(uri))
collection = ee.ImageCollection(images)

# Get an RGB image from the collection of bands.
rgb = collection.toBands().rename(['B2', 'B3', 'B4', 'B5'])
m = geemap.Map()
m.center_object(rgb)
m.add_layer(rgb, {'bands': ['B4', 'B3', 'B2'], 'min': 0, 'max': 20000}, 'rgb')
m

Learn more about loading images from Cloud GeoTiffs.

Construct from a Zarr v2 array

Create an ImageCollection from a Zarr v2 array in Cloud Storage by taking image slices along a higher dimension. For example:

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var timeStart = 1000000;
var timeEnd = 1000048;
var zarrV2ArrayImages = ee.ImageCollection.loadZarrV2Array({
  uri:
      'gs://gcp-public-data-arco-era5/ar/full_37-1h-0p25deg-chunk-1.zarr-v3/evaporation/.zarray',
  proj: 'EPSG:4326',
  axis: 0,
  starts: [timeStart],
  ends: [timeEnd]
});

print(zarrV2ArrayImages);

Map.addLayer(zarrV2ArrayImages, {min: -0.0001, max: 0.00005}, 'Evaporation');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

time_start = 1000000
time_end = 1000048
zarr_v2_array_images = ee.ImageCollection.loadZarrV2Array(
    uri='gs://gcp-public-data-arco-era5/ar/full_37-1h-0p25deg-chunk-1.zarr-v3/evaporation/.zarray',
    proj='EPSG:4326',
    axis=0,
    starts=[time_start],
    ends=[time_end],
)

display(zarr_v2_array_images)

m = geemap.Map()
m.add_layer(
    zarr_v2_array_images, {'min': -0.0001, 'max': 0.00005}, 'Evaporation'
)
m