Your First Visual in Three Minutes

3 min read

This quickstart walks you through one complete analysis — a Visual — on free Sentinel-2 imagery: pick an area, pick an insight, filter the imagery, and see the result on the Globe. Everything else in Remote Miner builds on this loop.

1. Start a new Visual #

Click the play button (“New visual”) at the top of the left rail. The guided panel opens with three steps: Area, Instrument, Insights.

2. Choose where — the Area #

  • If you already have areas, pick one under Saved Areas (the search box filters by name).
  • Otherwise click Draw on map, then click the map to place vertices and close the polygon to finish — or use Upload area to bring your own file. You’ll see the size in km².
  • For this example, keep the area around 100 km². Much bigger areas are completely possible — a small one just keeps your first run fast.
  • Give it a name and click Save area — or use Continue without saving for a quick look. Saving is recommended: several features (private imagery, ordering) only work on saved areas.
📷 Screenshot pending — Area step with a drawn polygon and the Save area field.

3. Choose the data — the Instrument #

Pick Sentinel-2 from the instrument list. It’s free, global, and updated every few days — the right choice for a first run. The tabs at the top let you filter All / Public / Private sources.

4. Choose the analysis — Insights #

Insights are grouped by category. For a first run, type “true” in the search and pick True Color — it’s the most common starting point: a natural, human-eye view of your area, exactly as the satellite saw it. The counter shows how many insights you selected; you can also pick a ready-made Stack from the second tab.

Click Apply to continue.

5. Filter the imagery #

The Filter Imagery panel defines which scenes to search:

  • Set a date range (start with the last 2–3 months).
  • Optionally limit months of the year, or set a maximum cloud cover.
  • Click Apply & Search.
📷 Screenshot pending — Filter Imagery panel with date range and cloud cover highlighted.

6. Pick a scene and visualize #

The Scenes panel lists the imagery that matched, with dates and cloud estimates. Pick a scene, and the run card summarizes what will be computed. Click Visualize (the play icon) — after a short render, your image appears on the Globe.

7. Explore the result #

  • Activate the pixel-value control, then click anywhere on the layer to read the values at that point — or right-click a point to see its full spectrum for the instrument.
  • Open Active layer analytics to enhance the display — stretching and color options for this image, and the full analytical toolset once you start running analytical insights.
  • The layers manager lets you toggle and reorder everything displayed on the Globe.

8. Keep what you made #

  • Save the workflow to re-run the same analysis later with one click.
  • Or export the result to the Cloud (navbar cloud icon) to download it as a GeoTIFF. Exports run in the background — you’ll get an email when they’re ready.

Good to know #

  • Visualizing and exporting count toward your company’s usage; bigger areas and heavier analytics consume more. Your usage is always visible in the navbar.
  • Cloudy scenes are normal in optical imagery — if your area looks wrong, check the scene’s cloud estimate and try another date before changing anything else.
Updated on July 17, 2026