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I.D.I.O.T. - A free DInSAR Software Andreas Reigber, Esra Erten. Olaf Hellwich In recent years, differential interferometry (DInSAR) using space-borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors has become an established technique for detecting and monitoring centimetre-scale deformations of the earth's surface, as well as glacier flows and land slides. However, in many cases, potential users are scared off by the alleged complexity and high demands of differential SAR interferometry. In practice this is not really true: As long as the imaging geometry is precisely known, differential SAR interferometry is an extremely straightforward technique. With the availability of precise orbit information as well as the free global digital elevation model (DEM) of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), control of imaging geometry became a rather simple task, which can be automatised to a high degree.
I.D.I.O.T. (InSAR Deformation Inspection and Observation Tool) is a free software package for fully automatic generation of differential SAR interferograms from ENVISAT and ERS-1/2 single look complex SAR data. Its main purpose is to simplify as much as possible the generation of differential SAR interferograms, even for complete novices in SAR interferometry. This is achieved by a fully automatic handling of the SAR data, orbits and topography information. The user has only to specify a reasonable pair of SAR data sets. As output, several meaningful maps for visual interpretation are generated, like differential phase, coherence map and several pretty looking colour composites of the results. I.D.I.O.T. uses the freely available DEM of the SRTM mission to compensate for topography and can work with both the coarse header orbits or precise orbit information. All interferometric processing steps are implemented having maximum interferogram quality and precision in mind.
IDIOT is entirely programmed in IDL. The use of IDL made it possible to accomplish the complete software implementation in about 4 weeks, including data import, GUI programming, InSAR processing and generation of output graphics. Using the IDL virtual machine it can be run without any license fees. Currently, IDIOT is under further development in order to support more sensors and to provide enhanced functionality. IDL is used since several years in the Computer Vision Group of Berlin University of Technology for processing of remote sensing imagery and implementation of various computer vision approaches. The much valued capabilities of IDL of rapid handling of large amounts of data and quick and simple implementation of complex algorithms turned it into the main programming language of the group. Contact: Andreas Reigber |
