API Mechanics

Authorization

Please contact SpaceKnow team to obtain an account.

Making Authorized Request

JWT (JSON Web Tokens) is used for authorization of every request against SpaceKnow APIs. JWT is sent in Authorization header after Bearer keyword (i.e. Authorization: Bearer JWT-TOKEN).

Example of an authorized request:

POST /imagery/search/initiate
POST /imagery/search/initiate HTTP/1.1
Host: api.spaceknow.com
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.e30.t-IDcSemACt8x4iTMCda8Yhe3iZaWbvV5XKSTbuAn0M
{
    "provider": "gbdx",
    "dataset": "idaho-pansharpened",
    "extent": {
                "type": "Polygon",
                "coordinates": [[
                        [115.84512233734131, -31.96024562403475],
                        [115.84490776062012, -31.96559774488045],
                        [115.84851264953612, -31.965452113067933],
                        [115.84842681884766, -31.96053690394404],
                        [115.84512233734131, -31.96024562403475]
            ]]
    }
}

Get JWT

Obtaining JWT tokens by clients is currently only supported for Auth0 OIDC provider.

Use Auth0 Authentication API to get a JWT. Tokens are valid for 10 hours.

  • SpaceKnow client ID: hmWJcfhRouDOaJK2L8asREMlMrv3jFE1

  • SpaceKnow Auth0 domain: spaceknow.auth0.com

For example request for JWT in exchange for email and password looks like this:

POST https://spaceknow.auth0.com/oauth/ro

Example request:

POST /oauth/ro HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "client_id": "hmWJcfhRouDOaJK2L8asREMlMrv3jFE1",
    "username": "your_spaceknow_email@example.com",
    "password": "your_spaceknow_password",
    "connection": "Username-Password-Authentication",
    "grant_type": "password",
    "scope": "openid"
}
Response JSON Object:
  • id_token (string) – JWT to be later used in authorized API requests.

Example response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "id_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.e30.t-IDcSemACt8x4iTMCda8Yhe3iZaWbvV5XKSTbuAn0M",
    "access_token": "some-token",
    "token_type": "bearer"
}

To acquire a token in devel environment, fire the request above but change the following:

  • SpaceKnow client ID: UWBUvt919N0sUXjG1CepGhiR0DJuazSY

  • SpaceKnow Auth0 domain: https://spaceknow-test.auth0.com

Permissions

Most SpaceKnow API endpoints have a set of permissions required to access them. A permission is a string with . as a namespace separator, for example imagery.availability.

The following Python code snipped shows how permissions are tested.

user_permission = user_permission_str.split('.')
required_permission = required_permission_str.split('.')

test_len = min(len(user_permission), len(required_permission))
user_permission_part = user_permission[:test_len]
required_permission_part = required_permission[:test_len]
return user_permission_part == required_permission_part

See the following example, where columns are permissions of a user and rows required permission.

imagery.availability

imagery.availability.gbdx

kraken

imagery

imagery.availability

true

true

false

true

imagery.availability.gbdx.idaho-pansharpened

true

true

false

true

imagery.availability.pl

true

false

false

true

imagery.images

false

false

false

true

imagery

true

true

false

true

See also User API.

API Errors

The HTTP status code of 5XX is returned if a server-side error occurs. The status code of 4XX is returned if a client-side error occurs.

Error Response body:

{
    "error": "MACHINE-READABLE-ERROR-CODE",
    "errorMessage": "A human readable error description."
}

List of HTTP Status Codes

  • 400 - Bad Request. Make sure that the request body and headers are correct.

  • 401 - Unauthorized. You do not have sufficient rights or credits to perform this action.

  • 402 - Payment Required. Allocation is required prior to running this request.

  • 403 - Forbidden. You are trying to modify internal assets.

  • 404 - Not Found. You are trying to access resource which does not exist.

  • 405 - Method Not Allowed. Used HTTP method is not allowed for this endpoint.

  • 409 - Conflict. You are trying to modify resource which is in conflict with another.

  • 413 - Payload Too Large. Request payload is too large.

  • 422 - Unprocessable Content. Request payload did not pass validation.

  • 424 - Failed Dependency. This status code is returned when a failed processing pipeline is retrieved (see Asynchronous API).

  • 429 - Too Many Requests. Too many requests to this endpoint, please try again later.

  • 500 - Internal Server Error.

  • 503 - Service Unavailable. Try again later.

List of Error Codes

See API errors for details.

Asynchronous APIs

Processes, that can take from minutes to hours, are handled asynchronously in the “pipeline”. All APIs that work asynchronously have ../initiate and ../retrieve endpoints. To trigger a new pipeline, use ../initiate. To check whether a pipeline is finished, request /check-status endpoint of Tasking API. To get a finished pipeline result, request ../retrieve.

POST /.../initiate
Response JSON Object:
  • pipelineId (string) – ID of the processing pipeline. It will be used later to check pipeline status and to retrieve pipeline result.

  • status (string) – status of the pipeline at the time the response was generated. See Tasking API to learn more about pipeline statuses.

  • nextTry (int) – recommended delay in seconds before first status check. See Tasking API

  • subGeometryId (str) – This is only provided in Kraken Release initiate endpoint if subGeometry was present in the request. See Release with subGeometry.

Example response:

{
    "nextTry": 5,
    "pipelineId": "3g4PovfhGxmymQolpgvv",
    "status": "NEW"
}

Example with subGeometryId response:

{
    "nextTry": 5,
    "pipelineId": "3g4PovfhGxmymQolpgvv",
    "status": "NEW",
    "subGeometryId": "0123456789abcdef"
}

Pipeline is stopped and set to the FAILED status if an error occurred during pipeline processing. Request on ../retrieve for the failed pipeline is responded with a status code 424, and with a specific error code and message. See API Errors.

POST /.../retrieve
Request JSON Object:
  • pipelineId (string) – required; ID of the pipeline whose result should be retrieved.

Example request:

{
    "pipelineId": "3g4PovfhGxmymQolpgvv"
}

Extent

Extent is a GeoJSON whose minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) is non-empty. All coordinates are considered to be expressed in WGS84 coordinate reference system.

Example extent:

{
    "type": "GeometryCollection",
    "geometries": [
        {
            "type": "Polygon",
            "coordinates": [
                [
                    [
                        14.452436864376,
                        50.092111002982
                    ],
                    [
                        14.451779723167,
                        50.092107561411
                    ],
                    [
                        14.452233016491,
                        50.091543140472
                    ],
                    [
                        14.452436864376,
                        50.092111002982
                    ]
                ]
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Extent Decomposition

Extent can be too large to be used with a particular API / system. We recommend to use Kraken API (Imagery and Analyses) in such cases.

This problem can be also solved on client side by decomposing the extent into a grid of smaller tiles (squares).

../_images/too_large_polygon.svg

A simple decomposition determines the smallest bounding rectangle of the extent, whose side lengths are multiples of a desired tile size.

../_images/decomposition_rectangle.svg

The bounding rectangle is then “cut” into square tiles. Tiles that do not intersect requested area could be omitted if desired.

Single tile has these properties:

  • square

  • intersection of the square with original polygon

../_images/decomposed_polygon.svg

The decomposition described above is “naive” as it uses a planar solution to the problem. It is recommended to use a CRS, which is a planar approximation of the earth in the area of the original extent.

API Response Headers

Following headers might be contained in API response:

  • SpaceKnow-Api-Version

  • SpaceKnow-Request-Id - unique identifier of the request. You may use it when contacting SpaceKnow engineering team about any technical issues.

Example response header:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
server: nginx
date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 15:47:16 GMT
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
content-length: 55
vary: Accept-Encoding
cache-control: no-cache
access-control-allow-origin: *
access-control-allow-headers: Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, Authorization
strict-transport-security: max-age=2592000; includeSubDomains
via: 1.1 google
alt-svc: hq=":443"; ma=2592000; quic=51303431; quic=51303339; quic=51303338; quic=51303337; quic=51303335,quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="41,39,38,37,35"
spaceknow-api-version: 106
spaceknow-request-id: QyhRiSw87c

Paging

Some APIs may return a big number of results. To avoid large JSON responses, the results are paginated using cursor as a pointer to a specific page.

Put parameter cursor to request an object to obtain a specific page.

Example of a specific page request:

{
    "search": "*",
    "cursor": "Pu9ZyvlVXxkm0XNr2FLr"
}

If the cursor is omitted, then the first page is returned.

Example of the first page request:

{
    "search": "*"
}

Paginated APIs return cursor which is a pointer to the next page and results which is a list of entities of the returned page.

Example of the paginated response:

{
    "results": [
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 1"
        },
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 2"
        },
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 3"
        },
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 4"
        },
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 5"
        }
    ],
    "cursor": "Pu9ZyvlVXxkm0XNr2FLr"
}

cursor is null if the last page was returned.

Example of the last page response:

{
    "results": [
        {
            "name": "Enterprise 6"
        }
    ],
    "cursor": null
}

Both normal and asynchronous APIs may be paginated. In the case of asynchronous APIs a new pipeline is started for every new requested page.