The EarthView software for Spaceborne Interferometric SAR processing

M.W.A. van der Kooij, B. Armour, J. Ehrismann, P. Farris-Manning and S. Sato

Atlantis Scientific Systems Group Inc. 
1827 Woodward Drive, Ottawa, Canada K2C 0P9
tel: 613-727-1087; fax: 613-727-5853, E-mail: marco@atlsci.com


In the last decade SAR interferometry (InSAR) has emerged as a very promising 
mapping technique that has the potential to routinely provide quantitative 
information on height, deformation and change, and allowing a full geocoding 
of SAR imagery. A growing number of applications have become feasible or 
are researched. 

Atlantis has developed commercially available InSAR 
software that provides both research and routine users of spaceborne 
InSAR data the opportunity to process and interact with data of varying 
quality and from various platforms and sources. It contains the full 
chain of steps necessary for interferometric processing e.g. image 
coregistration, interferogram generation, coherence products generation, 
interferogram enhancement, phase unwrapping, DEM / deformation map 
generation and geocoding. The InSAR workstation is based on the EarthView  
image analysis software. The workstation approach features a state of the 
art interferogram enhancement and filtering. The dataset geometry is 
characterized in terms of master and slave state vector and orbital 
propagators. Toolkit functions provide the opportunity to handle inaccurate 
state vectors. Several phase unwrapping algorithms have been implemented 
including the Atlantis patented algorithm.  Toolkit functions are available 
to compensate for potential data quality limitations. 

During the workshop the details of the processing approach and 
workstation setup will be demonstrated. Results and examples of 
interferometric products will be shown using JERS-1 interferometric SAR 
data of the Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake, ERS-1/2 and RADARSAT data 
over mountainous terrain.  

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry