Getting Started

Before You Install

For dapper to work properly, you will need to create a free account with Google Earth Engine if you don’t have one.

It is possible to make use of some dapper functionality without a GEE account, but tutorials, testing, etc. within dapper assume that the ee module is importable, and many of them assume that you can run ee.Authenticate() successfully.

Installation

Due to ongoing dapper development, the only way to install the package currently is via a “live install.” Instructions for this are provided below.

Step 1

Clone this repository to your local machine. I recommend Github Desktop if you’re not familiar with command-line git.

Step 2

Use the environment.yml file (it will be on your local machine in the root of the cloned repo) to create a virtual Python environment. You can use whatever package manager you prefer, but instructions here are for conda. I recommend installing mamba into your base environment to make package solving faster, but it’s not necessary. If you do install it, you can just replace conda with mamba in the following commands.

conda env create -f environment.yml  # This will automatically name your new environment "dapper" as it's specified in the environment.yml file

Step 3

Perform a “live install” of the dapper repo using pip. This allows you to update your local repo (via a Fetch origin in Github Desktop), and any new changes will be reflected immediately in the code that you’re running. No need to recompile a package and reinstall it. The following commands are for a Terminal/Command (or Anaconda) Prompt.

cd /path/to/cloned/dapper  # Navigate to where you cloned the repo
conda activate dapper      # Activate your dapper environment
pip install -e .           # Live-install the repo as an importable package

Step 4

Test that your install works. Again, in a Terminal/Command Prompt shell:

conda activate dapper
ipython
import ee # Make sure you have ee installed--should be done automatically through environment.yml
from dapper.met.adapters import era5 # Just testing the ability to import dapper modules

If you can import from the dapper package without error, you’re good to go (but don’t skip the next step).

Step 5

If you haven’t used the GEE API before, you’ll need to authenticate before you can interact with GEE via Python. For more details, or if you get stuck, check out the official guidance. However, it’s likely the following code will work for you:

conda activate dapper
ipython
import ee
ee.Authenticate()  # This should open a browser to allow access to your GEE account and project
ee.Initialize(project='ee-yourprojectname')  # replace ee-yourprojectname with your actual GEE project name

You will (should) not need to run ee.Authenticate() again as it stores your credentials locally. You will, however, have to run ee.Initialize(project='my_project') each time you use the GEE Python API.