With the rapid development of satellite technology, the amount of remote sensing data and demand for remote sensing data analysis over large areas are greatly increasing. Hence, it is necessary to quickly filter out an optimal dataset from massive dataset to support various remote sensing applications. However, with the improvements in temporal and spatial resolution, remote sensing data have become fragmented, which brings challenges to data retrieval. At present, most data service platforms rely on the query engines to retrieve data. Retrieval results still have a large amount of data with a high degree of overlap, which must be manually selected for further processing. This process is very labour-intensive and time-consuming. This paper proposes an improved coverage-oriented retrieval algorithm that aims to retrieve an optimal image combination with the minimum number of images closest to the imaging time of interest while maximized covering the target area. The retrieval efficiency of this algorithm was analysed by applying different implementation practices: Arcpy, PyQGIS, and GeoPandas. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the algorithm and suggest that the GeoPandas-based approach is most advantageous when processing large-area data.

The rapid growth of remote sensing data offers unprecedented opportunities for global environmental monitoring and resource assessment, yet poses significant challenges for efficient selection of large-scale image datasets. Traditional conditional retrieval methods often return extensive sets with substantial spatial redundancy, imposing heavy selection burdens on users. Existing automated selection methods struggle to balance coverage accuracy, redundancy control, and computational efficiency in large-scale scenarios, making efficient and accurate image selection a critical challenge for large-scale applications. To address this, we propose SCOPES (Spatially-Constrained Optimization for Efficient Image Selection), a novel spatial constraint optimization framework. SCOPES operates directly on actual image footprints in continuous space, thereby circumventing the limitations of traditional discretization-based modeling. We design a unit area cost function aimed at balancing image quality with spatial contribution. To ensure computational efficiency and solution optimization, SCOPES adopts a three-stage “preliminary selection-structural optimization-supplementary selection” strategy: employing lazy greedy for efficient initial selection, spatial Boolean overlay for redundancy control, and supplementary selection for coverage gap repair. Experiments conducted in four regions of different scales demonstrate that compared to baseline methods, SCOPES minimizes the number of selected images and maximizes coverage while achieving a near-universally minimal redundancy ratio. Meanwhile, the introduction of the lazy greedy algorithm significantly improves computational efficiency, achieving up to a 229-fold speedup in the large-scale East Asia region. Overall, SCOPES provides an efficient, accurate, and scalable solution for remote sensing data selection, substantially reducing the manual selection workload for platform users.