Getting MODIS Data and Tools

By the end of this tutorial the following steps will all be executed in R using the MODIS package. To gain a little understand and test the tools we download, however, the first thing we are going to do is a manual download of a MODIS file and some MODIS tools and then we will test out those tools to make sure they work as expected.

The files that we will download can be access through the Data Pool which is located here Data Pool Home.  At the data pool home you should aquaint yourself with the MODIS product table which is here. Product Table.  For this exercise I will be downloading a MODIS product known as MOD11 A2.  That is a  1km resolution 8 day average of Land Surface Temperature. MODIS  LST  8 day average.  That file is located on the Terra FTP site  MODIS TERRA FTP  I’m going to select the version 5 dataset MOD11A2 Version 5 . Specifically a file from the 8 days starting 4th of July 2006. 2006 4th of July.

To get the file I want I merely use the kmz file provided here Modis Tiles in Google Earth  whcih tells me the  Tile specification.  I want a file that covers tile  h10v04. If you don’t have google earth  you can also use this image

I will download two files.  The *hdf file and the  xml file.

Before doing that I can browse a jpg of the file here 

Download the following two files to a directory we will call  Test.

HDF

XML

Next up we will get some tools to help us with these files.  You will need to register to get the modis reprojection tool

Modis Reprojection Tool

Download that tool. And read the next page before unzipping it