SARscape - sarmap

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems can acquire data in different ways, such as:

Single or dual channel mode (for instance HH/HV or VV/VH);
Interferometric (single- or repeat-pass) mode;
Polarimetric mode (HH,HV,VH,VV);
By combining interferometric and polarimetric acquisition modes;
Stereo mode.

Obviously, different acquisition modes are subject to different processing techniques, namely:

Processing of SAR Intensity – The product generation is based on the intensity processing.
Interferometric SAR (InSAR) processing –The product generation includes the interferometric phase processing.
Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) processing – The product generation includes the polarimetric phase processing.
Polarimetric-Interferometric SAR (PolInSAR) processing – The product generation includes polarimetric and interferometric phase processing.
SAR stereo processing – The product generation is based on the processing of intensity stereo pair.

Modules

SARscape is a modular set of functions supporting all above mentioned techniques for the processing of all spaceborne and selected airborne SAR data. The modules are complemented by a multi-purpose tool including a wide range of functions, from image visualization to cartographic and geodetic transforms.

Basic
It includes a set of processing steps for intensity and coherence, e.g. multi-looking, co- registration, single- and multi-date speckle filtering, temporal feature extraction, geocoding, radiometric calibration and normalization, and mosaicing. This is complemented by a multi-purpose tool, which includes a wide range of functions – from image visualization, to Digital Elevation Model import and interpolation, to cartographic and geodetic transforms.

Focusing
It supports the focusing of various spaceborne data.

Gamma and Gaussian Filtering
It includes a whole family of SAR specific filters including single-date, multi-date, and polarimetric ones. They are particularly efficient to reduce speckle, while preserving the radar reflectivity, the textural properties and the spatial resolution, especially in strongly textured SAR images. Developed by Privateers.

Interferometry
It supports the processing of Interferometric SAR (2-pass interferometry, InSAR) and Differential Interferometric SAR (n-pass interfereometry, DInSAR) data for the generation of Digital Elevation Model, Coherence, and Land Displacement maps. Interferometry Module includes SAR stereo that supports the processing of SAR stereo data for the generation of Digital Elevation Model; and Amplitude Tracking that provides an estimate of the scene displacement possibly occurred between two temporally separated SAR acquisitions.

ScanSAR Interferometry
It offers the capabilities to process InSAR and DInSAR data over large areas (400 by 400 km).

SAR Polarimetry and Polarimetric Interferometry
It supports the processing of polarimetric and polarimetric interferometric SAR data.

Interferometric Stacking
It encompasses a suite of interferometric stacking techniques, which comprises the following methodologies: Small Baseline Subset (SBAS), Persistent Scatterers (PS), Enhanced Small Baseline Subset (E-SBAS), and Enhanced Persistent Scatterers (E-PS). Additionally, it includes the Continuous Tomography technique.

Quality Assessment Tool
It includes a set of customized functions for the assessment of SAR data quality in geometric, radiometric, and polarimetric terms.

Cluster
SBAS, PS, E-SBAS, E-PS (Interferometric Stacking Module) and CCD, Stereo DEM (Interferometry Module) processing pipelines are available in Cluster configuration, which split the the processing in a number of nodes.

Further information

SARscape technical description

Land Applications of Radar Remote Sensing

SARscape is available under ENVI platform and is distributed by NV5 Geospatial

Tutorials

Datasets included in the above tutorials can be downloaded from sarmap ftp. Please contact us at support@sarmap.ch to obtain login credentials. Please provide the full name of the license owner, the name of your institution and the license number.

19^th, September 2023