Quick Start & Notes (Updated)

This help panel reflects the current app UI and behavior. Drawing is the primary way to select an AOI: manual coordinates are available as a secondary option in the sidebar.

1: Select Your Area (primary: Draw)

• Click the rectangle draw tool in the map toolbar (top-left) and drag to draw your AOI.

• After drawing, click ✓ Set from Drawing in the right panel to confirm the AOI. A yellow rectangle shows the selected AOI.

• If you need to try again, use Clear Drawing 🗑️ to clear the drawn coordinates, or Clear Bounding Box to clear the AOI entirely.

• The map will preserve the current pan/zoom while you clear or set AOIs (it will not reset to the default view unless you reload the app).

2: Manual Entry (secondary)

• Manual coordinate fields are available under Manual Entry (click to expand) in the right sidebar.

• Enter Min/Max Latitude and Longitude, then click ✓ Set Bounding Box to apply. This is useful only when drawing is not convenient.

3: Dates & Analysis Modes

• Snapshot mode: analyze a single date range and show water/shoreline for that period.

• Change mode: compares a current period to a historical offset (use the "Historical offset (days)" slider).

4: Detection Methods (what to pick)

• Otsu (auto): recommended starting point for most AOIs.

• Fixed: expert/manual threshold control.

• Adaptive: local thresholding, useful for heterogeneous scenes.

• Multi-Index: consensus across indices, most robust in turbid/coastal waters.

5: Run Analysis

• Confirm your yellow AOI is visible then click ▶️ Run Analysis.

• Progress bar indicates searching → downloading → processing → vectorizing.

• Typical runtime depends on AOI size and number of scenes: smaller AOIs and fewer scenes are much faster.

6: Results & Layers

• Switch to the Results tab to see the outputs (shorelines, water masks, change polygons).

• Use the layer control (top-right) to toggle layers.

• Color legend (in UI and docs) maps each layer to an interpretable color: colors were tuned for visibility and reduced eye-strain.

Troubleshooting & Performance

• If the backend (Microsoft Planetary Computer or data service) is slow, try a smaller AOI or reduce Max scenes to process.

• If detection looks noisy, enable Refine (morphology) and/or increase smoothing tolerance.

Quick Tips

• Start with Otsu + cloud_max 20% and max_scenes 6–10.

• For highly turbid water, try Multi-Index with consensus=2.

• Use small AOIs for quick iteration; increase AOI and scene count for final runs.

Where to get help

• See QUICK_START.md and README.md for full docs and deployment notes.