For Modis satellite image Christian Perone has published 2 papers on his blog that I summarized and explained in French in
http://www.portailsig.org/content/python-visualiser-en-temps-quasi-reel-les-images-satellites-et-les-shapefiles-modis-ou-les-d For originals http://pyevolve.sourceforge.net/wordpress/?p=86 http://pyevolve.sourceforge.net/wordpress/?p=1013 He use the module Basemap from matplotlib For SRTM dems, using Stevendkay's blog, I did the same thing using matplotlib and Mayavi2 http://www.portailsig.org/content/python-visualiser-et-traiter-des-donnees-spatiales-de-type-xyz-shapefiles-ou-mnt-srtm For originals http://stevendkay.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/beginning-digital-elevation-model-work-with-python/ http://stevendkay.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/mapping-water-drainage-with-srtm-elevation-data-in-python/ using numpy to process data. For GDAL/OGR in addition to the beautifull work of Jose, there are the courses of http://www.gis.usu.edu/~chrisg/python/2009/http://www.gis.usu.edu/~chrisg/python/2009/
