Search

In recent years, interferometric sytnthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is one of the most preferred techniques to generate digital surface models (DSM) which are the three dimensional (3D) digital cartographic representations of earth surface including all terrain and non-terrain formations. Interferometric DSM generation using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is not an easy process and the vertical absolute accuracy of the final product depends on various parameters. In this study, we aimed to demonstrate the influence of temporal baseline between SAR image-pairs on the vertical absolute accuracy of high resolution interferometric DSMs. The application was realized covering 20km² area in Berlin, Germany using 15 descending orbit high resolution spotlight (HS) TerraSAR-X (TSX) images. The suitable interferometric pairs were determined for DSM generation and two of them that have similar parameters except temporal baseline were selected regarding the purposes of the study. The master image was selected as same in the generation of both DSMs and the temporal baselines between this master image and slave images were 11 days (1 period) and 187 days (17 periods), respectively. TSX HS DSMs were generated with 2 m grid spacing and the vertical absolute accuracies were calculated based on the comparison with a reference DSM generated by radargrammetry. The analyses were realized for built-up and forest land classes separately. The results proved that longer temporal baseline has negative influence on the vertical absolute accuracies of TSX HS interferometric DSMs. The first DSM which has the shortest temporal baseline, possible for TSX sensing is better than the second one as approx. 1.5m both for built-up and forest areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we contribute to answer the question: How accurately can we estimate heights of buildings with flat roofs given one high-resolution single-pass interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) image pair and one aerial orthophoto? What makes this problem challenging are the different sensor geometries and the sound stochastic combination of all available elevation cues. We revisit already existing methods and develop novel approaches to determine building heights. A rigorous stochastic approach based on least squares adjustment with functionally dependent parameters is introduced to combine all height measurements per building to one robust height estimate. Observation accuracies of the stochastic model are either taken from the literature or estimated empirically. A major benefit of adjustment is that it delivers a posterior standard deviation per height, which can be interpreted as a precision indicator and is of high relevance for practical applications. Estimated heights of an urban scene are compared to ground truth acquired with airborne laser scanning, allowing us to assess height accuracies that can be achieved under nearly optimal conditions. We conduct statistical tests that validate our model and show that a weighted combination of optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with least squares adjustment delivers reliable height estimates with meter accuracy for flat-roofed buildings. Additionally, we empirically estimate a confidence interval of the estimated heights that directly tells the user the security margin to be included, for example, in case of building evacuations for an anticipated flooding event, under the condition that the data and model have the same specifications as in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a technique to simultaneously estimate surface deformation and 3D structure from stacks of SAR images. It was proposed first about one decade ago to monitor preferably urban areas, where in general the highest numbers of PS are found. At that time no high-resolution satellite SAR data were available. Instead, for example, stacks of ERS imagery were used providing ground range resolution of about 25m. In data of such kind only the strongest PS can be detected, which are usually caused by corner reflectors built by orthogonal building and road planes of considerable size, whereas smaller structures causing weaker ones signal are averaged by clutter or mutually interfere with others in the same resolution cell. Thus, if any, only a few or even just one single PS are found per building. The advent of a new senor generation of systems like TerraSAR-X and COSMO-Skymed in 2007 led to a significant improvement of spatial resolution of about one order of magnitude. This comes along with a dramatic rise of PS density: In some cases tens to hundreds are detected at large buildings, which offers the possibility to monitor even individual urban objects. In addition, especially at building façades the distribution of those PS is often quite regular. A reason for that is the usually rectilinear arrangement of façade structures inducing PS like windows or balconies. Those patterns contain a lot of information about the objects under investigation, which is mostly ignored in current PSI processing schemes. For example, consider a regular structure of windows on a certain façade of a multi-story building. Assuming the same kind of structure generates one single PS at each window, the phase centers of all scatterers caused by windows of each floor share the same height. This means, we may benefit from such kind of redundancy, for instance, to improve the height estimate by averaging over PS having the same elevation. In this work, we first discuss the regular appearance of PS at urban façades for an urban test scene in TerraSAR-X spotlight mode data. Then, we show how PS analysis could benefit by exploitation of the redundancy due to repetitive patterns of man-made objects. Finally, we propose a PS grouping scheme based on a production system and discuss first results achieved for the test area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data is being used intensely for scientific applications and many SAR missions have been accomplished. On the contrary of optical systems operating based on passive sensing principle, SAR technology is capable of providing data independent of weather conditions and time of acquisition under favour of active sensing ability and long wavelength. The most important problem of SAR data was decided upon the resolution. However, this problem is overcome with orbitting of TerraSAR-X (TSX) which is considered to be a revolution. TSX can provide high resolution data (up to 1m) covering large areas thanks to three different imaging modes. Today, many scientific studies are performed employing TSX data. ISPRS SAR Interferometry Working Group is also conducting a project that performs quality assessment of digital elevation models generated from TSX data. Within the scope of this project, several test sites are being studied from Turkey, Spain, Germany and Italy. In this research, many high resolution DEMs are generated using 3m azimuth resolution TSX StripMap (SM) mode images for Barcelona (Spain) and the most suitable one is chosen and quality assessment is performed on it in the context of the aforementioned project. For the study, quality assessment is performed taking into consideration accuracy and visuality components in Barcelona test site that has been partitioned in two sub-areas as a large area with steep and mountainous topography and an urban area. In the application, a photogrammetric reference model that has 10 cm horizontal and 10 cm - 1 m vertical accuracy was used for the verification. The results show that TSX DEM is compatible with all aspects of the topography with the accuracy between ±8-10m. As another application in the study, Barcelona city model available in Google Earth, which is known to be generated by very accurate LIDAR data, and PSI results of TSX are compared. As a result, it is observed that PSI products and reference data are quite compatible and RMSZ of elevations are around 2,5m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]