Potential of high-resolution SAR images for urban analysis

State-of-the-art airborne SAR sensors provide spatial resolution on the order of a decimetre. In such data, many features of urban objects can be identified, which were beyond the scope of radar remote sensing before. In this paper, the impact of high-resolution SAR data on the analysis of urban scenes is discussed. An example for the new quality of the appearance of buildings in such data is given and interpreted. The fine level of detail opens the opportunity to reconstruct the structure of man-made objects (e.g. buildings). First results of segmentations of salient roof and facade structures, which become visible in such kind of data, are presented. The topics geocoding and data fusion using different kinds of reference GIS data are addressed. In order to limit the computational load, a combined multi-scale SAR image processing and analysis is advantageous.     «

State-of-the-art airborne SAR sensors provide spatial resolution on the order of a decimetre. In such data, many features of urban objects can be identified, which were beyond the scope of radar remote sensing before. In this paper, the impact of high-resolution SAR data on the analysis of urban scenes is discussed. An example for the new quality of the appearance of buildings in such data is given and interpreted. The fine level of detail opens the opportunity to reconstruct the structure of ma...     »