Topographic Mapping with Back-Projection Tomography and Geocoded Polarimetric SAR Images

Digital surface models (DSMs) are sets of elevation data of the Earth’s surface useful for urban and forest studies. They can be derived from a set of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired in a tomographic configuration. The combination of SAR tomography (TomoSAR) and polarimetry (PolSAR) can provide more informative DSMs. In this work, we present steps for deriving DSMs with polarimetric tomographic (PolTomoSAR) single-look complex (SLC) products focused in map geometry (geocoded) by means of a time domain back-projection algorithm (TDBP). Performance analysis showed that in comparison to those obtained with single-polarization TomoSAR data, PolTomoSAR yields DSMs with more accurate height estimates and higher point densities.