Platform

Google Earth Engine is a computing platform that allows users to run geospatial analysis on Google's infrastructure. There are several ways to interact with the platform. The Code Editor is a web-based IDE for writing and running scripts. The Explorer is a lightweight web app for exploring our data catalog and running simple analyses. The client libraries provide Python and JavaScript wrappers around our web API. Continue reading for an overview of each of these, or visit the Earth Engine’s Developer Guide for an in-depth guide.

Code Editor

The Earth Engine Code Editor at code.earthengine.google.com is a web-based IDE for the Earth Engine JavaScript API. It requires log in with a Google Account that’s been enabled for Earth Engine access. Code Editor features are designed to make developing complex geospatial workflows fast and easy. The Code Editor has the following elements (illustrated in the figure):

Client libraries

The client libraries provide JavaScript and Python wrapper functions for the Earth Engine API. You can use them to build custom applications and to develop Earth Engine code locally using a JavaScript or Python interpreter. The repository on GitHub includes a number of demos illustrating how to use the client libraries.