Mosaicking Copernicus Sentinel-1 Data at Global Scale

This paper presents a processing chain for handling big volume of remotely sensing data for generating wide extent mosaics. More specifically, the data under consideration are level-1 ground range detected Sentinel-1 products with dual polarisation (VV+VH or HH+HV). Two approaches for a) distribution discretization accompanied by false color composition and b) image rendering and mosaicking are proposed. While these two components are necessary constituents of the presented mosaicking workflow, they can operate independently of each other. The design of the processing chain satisfies three objectives: i) contrasting derivative products of the input Sentinel-1 imagery such as the Global Human Settlement Layer, ii) adapting on a high-throughput computing system for fast execution, and iii) allowing potential extensions to more complex applications such as the image classification. Fast processing, process automation, incremental adjustment and information distinction are the main advantages of the proposed method. Elaboration and focus on these features are carried out during the presentation of the results.