Lens Library Overview

The Lens Library allows you to curate which data sources are relevant to your monitoring workflow. Curate the data layers and overlays you need and configure your settings by portfolio. By selecting the options that are most relevant to your organization, your team will enjoy a simpler interface while monitoring.

This article will cover the two types of data that are configurable from the Lens Library:
  • Layers, which include remote imagery, multispectral data, or other geospatial data that appears on top of the basemap in the property map view. 
  • Overlays, which display vector data on top of the basemap and selected layer, and may be polygons, lines, or points. 

Check out our support article on the difference between layers and overlays for more information.

Layers

From the Property Map view, you can click the Layers dropdown at the top and see all the options loaded for your portfolio. When you'd like to add more layers or pare down the ones you don't use, click the "Explore the Lens Library" button on the bottom of the dropdown.

This link takes you to the Layers Library page, or you can navigate there from the Settings page in the top right dropdown. Here, you'll see all the imagery and data layers available. These options are continuing to evolve, and we'll let you know when new layers have been added to our library. 

From here, admin users can select or de-select which layers to add to each portfolio by clicking on the layer card to view the portfolios dropdown. You can also use the "Portfolios" button at the top of the page to which layers have been added to specific portfolios. Processing will begin immediately, and may take a few minutes to load depending on the layer.

The Layers Library includes many different kinds of data layers available through Lens, including:

  • Truecolor imagery, which is a birds-eye view of the land from above. This includes both public imagery, which is freely available, and commercial sources which can be ordered on a per-acre basis for each property. 
  • Index data, such as sensor data on vegetation and surface water. 
  • Color infrared data, also known as falsecolor, which displays different infrared band combinations to visually highlight certain features. 
  • Modeled datasets, such as land cover classification or forest conditions. 
  • Premium layers, such as Planet Basemaps, can be added to your account from the Layers Library and have an additional monthly or annual cost. 

Overlays

Overlays are a great way to add context as you're monitoring. We have quite a few available options in the Library, and Admin and Member users can configure which portfolios they should appear on by default by clicking the green "Add" button on the Overlay card.

See our Overlays support doc here for more information about the current Overlay options included in Lens, and how you can upload your own custom Overlays.