In this paper, we propose a framework referred to as “geodetic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography” that fuses the SAR imaging geodesy and tomographic {SAR} inversion ({TomoSAR}) approaches to obtain absolute 3-D positions of a large amount of natural scatterers. The methodology is applied on four very high resolution {TerraSAR}-X spotlight image stacks acquired over the city of Berlin. Since all the {TomoSAR} estimates are relative to the same reference point object whose absolute 3-D positions are retrieved by means of stereo {SAR}, the point clouds reconstructed using data acquired from different viewing angles can be geodetically fused. To assess the accuracy of the position estimates, the resulting absolute shadow-free 3-D {TomoSAR} point clouds are compared with a digital surface model obtained by airborne {LiDAR}. It is demonstrated that an absolute positioning accuracy of around 20 cm and a meter-order relative positioning accuracy can be achieved by the proposed framework using {TerraSAR}-X data.     «

In this paper, we propose a framework referred to as “geodetic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography” that fuses the SAR imaging geodesy and tomographic {SAR} inversion ({TomoSAR}) approaches to obtain absolute 3-D positions of a large amount of natural scatterers. The methodology is applied on four very high resolution {TerraSAR}-X spotlight image stacks acquired over the city of Berlin. Since all the {TomoSAR} estimates are relative to the same reference point object whose absolute 3-D pos...     »

Absolute positioning, absolute positioning, absolute positioning accuracy, Atmospheric modeling, Azimuth, Berlin city, free 3-D {TomoSAR} point clouds, geodetical fusion, geodetical fusion, geodetically fused, geodetic {SAR} tomography, Geodetic {SAR} tomography, Geometry, geophysical image processing, Image reconstruction, meter-order relative positioning accuracy, Orbits, point clouds reconstruction, radar imaging, reference point object stereo {SAR}, remote sensing by radar, {SAR} geodesy, {SAR} Geodesy, {SAR} imaging geodesy, {SAR} tomography, {SAR} tomography, stereo {SAR}, stereo-{SAR}, Synthetic aperture radar, synthetic aperture radar ({SAR}), {TerraSAR}-X, {TerraSAR}-X, {TerraSAR}-X data, {TerraSAR}-X spotlight image stacks, Three-dimensional displays, tomographic {SAR} inversion, tomography, {TomoSAR}, peer_review     «

Absolute positioning, absolute positioning, absolute positioning accuracy, Atmospheric modeling, Azimuth, Berlin city, free 3-D {TomoSAR} point clouds, geodetical fusion, geodetical fusion, geodetically fused, geodetic {SAR} tomography, Geodetic {SAR} tomography, Geometry, geophysical image processing, Image reconstruction, meter-order relative positioning accuracy, Orbits, point clouds reconstruction, radar imaging, reference point object stereo {SAR}, remote sensing by radar, {SAR} geodesy, {S...     »