ClearSKY tiles and minitiles: how we package cloud free imagery

What is a ClearSKY tile

A ClearSKY tile is a fixed footprint of cloud free fused imagery. It is the main unit you receive when you order from the viewer or the dashboard. Each tile contains a consistent mosaic produced by blending multiple scenes and sensors with machine learning.

Tiles are designed for analysis, not just visual browsing. They are suitable for crop monitoring, change detection, and other workflows that need stable temporal behaviour and minimal cloud artefacts.

• Roughly 5200 × 5200 pixels at the product resolution.
• Cloud free as far as source data allows, with gaps filled by fusion.
• Aligned to a regular grid for simple storage and scripting.

Minitiles: fine control and previews

Minitiles are smaller pieces of the same imagery. They exist for two main reasons: faster preview and more precise control of which area you pay for.

• Preview and quality check. You can quickly inspect coverage and quality over a small patch before you commit to larger tiles.
• Edge cases. Along tile borders, rivers, coastlines, and administrative boundaries, minitiles let you avoid ordering large empty sections.
• Fragmented fields. In regions with many small fields, minitiles let you track only the parts that matter.

In the viewer you can right click a tile or use specific tools to break it down into minitiles and select only the pieces you want.

How ClearSKY tiles relate to Sentinel-2 tiles

The ClearSKY Tile Viewer shows Sentinel-2 tiles as a reference grid so you can search by MGRS codes such as T33UUU. On top of that grid you select ClearSKY tiles and minitiles, which are the units you actually order.

This approach keeps your workflow compatible with existing Sentinel-2 scripts and catalogues, while still letting ClearSKY optimise the fused product for cloud free coverage and stable time series.

If you want a deeper explanation of the Sentinel-2 side of this, read the Sentinel-2 tiles guide.

Using tiles and minitiles when ordering

In practice you rarely need only one type of unit. A typical workflow in the viewer looks like this:

1. Zoom to your region of interest and select a handful of tiles.
2. Where tiles overshoot the true boundary, break them into minitiles and deselect the parts you do not want.
3. Save the set or send it straight to the dashboard, where you pick time ranges, products, and delivery format.

For very detailed or irregular areas you can also switch to polygon based ordering at polygon.clearsky.vision or start directly at dashboard.clearsky.vision/create-order.

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