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Quickstart: Run pipeline script

This quickstart describes how you can install and run our pipeline script to create your first map layers, based on a default dataset and default parameters.

Prerequisites

  • Command Line: Familiarity with running commands from a terminal.
  • Docker: Familiarity with Docker. We use it to ensure the environment is consistent.
  • Git (Optional): Understanding git is helpful for managing updates. Refer to GitHub's Git Guide for a quick overview.
  • Admin Rights: You will likely need administrator privileges to install Docker.

1: Download the Solar-Estimates Code

You can either download the code as a simple zip file or use git to clone the repository.

Option 1A: Download and Unzip (Simplest)

# Move to your home directory
cd ~

# Download and unzip the latest source code 
wget https://github.com/rewiring-nz/solar-estimates/archive/refs/heads/main.zip 
unzip main.zip
mv ~/solar-estimates-main/ ~/solar-estimates/
cd ~/solar-estimates/

# Move to your home directory
cd ~

# clone repository
`git clone https://github.com/rewiring-nz/solar-estimates.git
cd solar-estimates/

Tip

You can find these download details from the github source page: https://github.com/rewiring-nz/solar-estimates.

2: Install Docker

If you haven’t already installed Docker, follow the instructions for your operating system:

Option 2A: Windows or Mac:

Follow the official Docker Desktop installation guide. Then start docker by opening the application. In your taskbar you should see a little whale icon. When clicked, it should say Docker Desktop is running.

Option 2B: Ubuntu or Debian Linux:

You can use our setup script:

# Navigate to the scripts directory and run the installer 
cd scripts
sudo ./setup-docker.sh

3: Run the Pipeline

With Docker ready, you can now launch the processing pipeline. This process downloads required images and runs the analysis, which may take several minutes.

# Ensure you are in the project root directory (i.e. go back up one level if you were in scripts/ or src/)

docker compose --env-file configs/suburb_ShotoverCountry.env up pipeline
You will see logs in your terminal as the pipeline.sh script executes.

Once finished, observe that you have created the following files in the solar-estimates/src/data/outputs/OUTPUT_AREA_NAME/ directory:

File Layer Type
suburb_ShotoverCountry_building_stats.gpkg GeoPackage: A spatial database containing a layer of building polygons and their solar attributes.
suburb_ShotoverCountry_merged.vrt Virtual Raster: A wrapper to multiple solar irradiation tiles.
suburb_ShotoverCountry_building_stats.csv Tabular Data: A spreadsheet of building solar attributes.

4: Stop and Clean Up

When you are finished or want to stop the process, use the following command to shut down the Docker container safely:

# Again, run this from your root directory
docker compose down

Next steps

  1. View Map Layers: Why don't you use QGIS to view the map layers you just created, by following our QGIS Quickstart.