Welcome to the official GitHub organization for TIMESAT.
This is the only official repository hub for the TIMESAT software and related resources.
TIMESAT is a software package for analysing time-series of satellite sensor data. We have developed TIMESAT to be able to investigate the seasonality of satellite time-series data and their relationship with dynamic properties of vegetation, such as phenology and temporal development. The temporal domain holds important information about short- and long-term vegetation changes. The first generation of TIMESAT - distributed as version 3, was limited to processing of data with a regular time step, typical of data from MODIS or NOAA AVHRR. This version is very stable and is still distributed at the timesat webpage, see Contact. The new generation, named TIMESAT version 4 and distributed in this repository, is built on the same principles but works with irregularly spaced data in time (Sentinel-2, Landsat etc.) and has several incremental modifications and improvements. TIMESAT 4 is the basis of several operational products, e.g. Copernicus CLMS phenology data for Europe from Sentinel-2 data (HR-VPP) and the globe from Sentinel-3 data (CGLOPS), and projects by ESA (RAMONA, SEN4LDN).
The TIMESAT algorithmic core is proprietary software.
It is freely available for non-commercial scientific research, academic teaching, and personal use only.
Commercial use of the TIMESAT core requires a separate written agreement with the authors.
The TIMESAT organization also provides open-source tools and interfaces (including graphical and command-line applications) that facilitate scientific use of the TIMESAT core.
Detailed license terms are provided in the individual repositories
(e.g. timesat, timesat-engine, timesat-gui, timesat-cli).
👉 TIMESAT-CLI
This repository provides the official Python implementation of TIMESAT.
It contains the core functionality, documentation, and examples for working with satellite time-series data in Python.
All official code, documentation, and updates related to TIMESAT will be published under this organization.
Please verify that any TIMESAT-related repository is hosted here to ensure authenticity.
For more information about TIMESAT, distribution of TIMESAT version 3, and commercial licensing inquiries, please refer to the official website:
👉 TIMESAT Website or email us: zhanzhang.cai@nateko.lu.se
Install TIMESAT-GUI:
pip install timesat-guiAfter installation, start the TIMESAT-CLI with:
timesat-cliIf you use TIMESAT in your research, please cite the corresponding release on Zenodo:
Cai, Z., Eklundh, L., & Jönsson, P. (2025). TIMESAT4: is a software package for analysing time-series of satellite sensor data (Version 4.1.x) [Computer software]. Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17369757
The TIMESAT software was first formally described and introduced in the scientific literature in 2004 (Jönsson & Eklundh, 2004), providing a robust framework for analysing time-series of satellite sensor data. This foundational work established the theoretical and methodological basis for extracting seasonality and phenological metrics from vegetation index time series and has since been widely used in both research and operational applications.
The original idea for TIMESAT emerged from interdisciplinary discussions between Professor Per Jönsson , an applied mathematician with a background in signal processing, and Professor Lars Eklundh, a vegetation remote sensing scientist. During conversations that often took place while accompanying their children at a playground sandbox, they realized that existing tools for satellite time-series analysis lacked a solid mathematical foundation while still being closely connected to ecological interpretation. This insight eventually led to the development of TIMESAT.
Since its first formalisation in 2004, TIMESAT has evolved through multiple generations, and version 4 represents its current, widely adopted implementation.