Documentation
Open Studio

Earth Engine Studio guide

Getting started

Connect Earth Engine Studio to an enabled Cloud project and run a first JavaScript or Python analysis.

What you need

Studio runs in a modern browser. To execute Earth Engine requests, you also need a Google account and a Google Cloud project that is registered for Earth Engine use. Google’s Earth Engine access guide explains registration, project types, billing, and permissions.

You can open the interface without signing in and explore its layout, examples, and documentation. Requests that read Earth Engine data, inspect assets, or create exports require an authenticated project.

About the platform

Earth Engine Studio supplies the workspace. Google Earth Engine supplies the catalog, computation service, and Earth Engine APIs. Studio is independent and is not an official Google product.

Connect your account and project

  1. Open Earth Engine Studio.
  2. Use the account control in the upper-right corner to sign in with Google.
  3. Choose a Cloud project that has Earth Engine enabled and that your account may use.
  4. Wait for the connection status to confirm the selected project.

The project is more than a display preference. It is used for Earth Engine requests, asset discovery, exports, and the Studio services that store repository preferences or credentials. Changing it invalidates active runtime callbacks and refreshes project-scoped panels.

Studio keeps Google access tokens in memory rather than browser-local storage. The server-backed session can refresh authorization while the workspace is open.

Open a first script

Select Scripts in the left panel, expand Built-in examples, and open a compact example. Each opened file receives its own editor tab. You can also use the new-file control to start an unsaved document.

For an original JavaScript starting point, paste the following into a blank editor. It draws a terrain view over part of the eastern Alps and reports the analysis area.

var region = ee.Geometry.Rectangle([10.8, 46.4, 12.4, 47.4]);
var elevation = ee.Image("NASA/NASADEM_HGT/001").clip(region);

Map.centerObject(region, 8);
Map.addLayer(
  elevation,
  {min: 400, max: 3200, palette: ["17324d", "5fa67a", "f0d28b", "f7f7f2"]},
  "Alpine elevation"
);

print("Region area in km²", region.area().divide(1e6));

Choose JavaScript in the editor language control if the filename does not already end in .js or .ee.js, then select Run. The layer appears in Map and the computed value appears in Console.

Try the same workflow in Python

Create another blank document, choose Python, and use a .py or .ee.py filename. Studio provides the authenticated Earth Engine client inside its browser Python runtime, so a normal Studio script does not need to open a separate authentication flow.

import ee

region = ee.Geometry.Rectangle([10.8, 46.4, 12.4, 47.4])
elevation = ee.Image("NASA/NASADEM_HGT/001").clip(region)

Map.centerObject(region, 8)
Map.addLayer(
    elevation,
    {"min": 400, "max": 3200,
     "palette": ["17324d", "5fa67a", "f0d28b", "f7f7f2"]},
    "Alpine elevation",
)

print("Region area in km²", region.area().divide(1e6))

The first Python run may take longer while Studio prepares the pinned browser runtime. Later runs reuse it until the worker or authentication context resets.

Read the result

One script can update several parts of the workspace:

  • Map displays layers and offers visibility, opacity, provider, basemap, drawing, and inspection controls.
  • Console shows print() output, warnings, and errors. Structured Earth Engine values can be expanded.
  • Plots open as center tabs when code creates Plotly, chart, or Matplotlib output.
  • Tasks receives export definitions. They remain unsubmitted until you explicitly review and start them.

If code is selected in the editor, use Run selection to evaluate only that fragment. Use a full run when later statements depend on bindings created earlier in the document.

Where to go next

Continue with the workspace guide to learn how panels and persistence work, or open the editor guide for files, modules, saves, and sharing. For Earth Engine data types and analysis concepts, use Google’s developer guides as the authoritative reference.