Visibility analysis of man-made objects in SAR images
The increasing resolution of SAR data offers the
possibility to utilize this data for a detailed scene
interpretation in urban areas. Different SAR specific
phenomena like foreshortening, layover, shadow and
multipath-propagation burden the interpretation. A high
resolution LIDAR DEM of an urban scene is incorporated to
investigate the impact of the phenomena on the visibility of
man-made objects by a SAR measurement from a given sensor
trajectory and orientation. LIDAR data as ground truth is well
suited for this task, because it contains elevation information of
man-made and natural objects. Shadow and layover areas are
simulated by incoherent sampling of the DEM. By a variation of
viewing and aspect angles a large number of such simulations
are carried out. From this set of segmentations the n best are
determined with respect to the visibility of roads and buildings.
Furthermore, the locations of total reflection or double-bounce
scattering in the vicinity of buildings are determined.
Soergel U, Thoennessen U, Stilla U (2003)
Visibility analysis of man-made objects in SAR images.
2nd GRSS/ISPRS Joint Workshop on Remote Sensing and data fusion on urban areas, URBAN 2003.
IEEE, 120-124
(ISBN 0-7803-7719-2)
[ Stilla.de/pub ]