Run the tutorials in a Codespace

Run the tutorials in a Codespace#

GitHub Codespaces gives you a Linux VM with VS Code in your browser. The Codespace boots with ASP and asp-plot already installed.

Launch#

  1. Click the badge below (or the Code → Codespaces → Create codespace menu on the GitHub repo).

    Open in GitHub Codespaces

  2. GitHub pulls a pre-built container image from GHCR — ASP binaries and the asp-plot conda env are already baked in. (If the image isn’t accessible from your fork, the devcontainer.json includes a commented-out build: block you can flip on for a from-source build.)

  3. When VS Code opens in your browser, the terminal will show a friendly banner:

    stereopipeline-quickstart
ASP + asp-plot, ready to go.
Next steps:
  1. Open notebooks/01_aster_rainier.ipynb and click "Run All".

Machine size#

The minimum Codespace machine type for this repo is 4-core / 16 GB / 32 GB storage (set in .devcontainer/devcontainer.json). 4-core is the floor every GitHub account can launch without extra billing setup. You can pick a larger machine at launch time via the “Create codespace with options” menu — stereo correlation is parallel and will be roughly 2× faster on 8 cores. Larger machines are billed at higher rates; see Codespaces pricing.

Tip

If you select a machine larger than 4 cores, bump the --processes flag in the parallel_stereo calls (and --threads in bundle_adjust / mapproject) to match your core count for a real speedup.

Run a tutorial#

Open one of the notebooks under notebooks/:

File

What it does

01_aster_rainier.ipynb

ASTER L1A → 30 m DEM of Mt. Rainier

02_worldview_ucsd.ipynb

WorldView-3 → 4 m DEM of UCSD

03_worldview_ucsd_ba.ipynb

Tutorial 2 plus bundle adjustment, for comparison

Each notebook has a “Run All” button at the top. Cells are small enough to run them step by step.

If a cell fails, open a problem report with the error output.

Persistence and storage#

  • Files in your Codespace persist between sessions as long as the Codespace exists.

  • Codespaces are deleted after 30 days of inactivity by default. Commit anything important to git or download it.

  • The data/ directory is gitignored, since it can grow quite large with imagery and processed results.

Costs#

GitHub gives every personal account a monthly Codespaces allowance for free — see the Codespaces billing page for the current numbers.

Tip

Students and educators with a .edu email get a larger allowance. Apply to the GitHub Student Developer Pack or GitHub for Teachers.

If you’d rather not use Codespaces, see the local install guide.