An overview on interferometric SAR software and a comparison between DORIS and SARSCAPE Packages

Abstract

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Interferometry, or INSAR, relies on the processing of SAR data. INSAR relies on the processing of SAR data leading to Digital Elevation Models (DEM). DINSAR (Differential INSAR) or A(dvanced)-DINSAR provide ground deformation measurements. These techniques have proven their capabilities for several years but they are generally only used by experts in radar image processing. However, several free-of-charge (freeware or open-source) and proprietary software packages exist. In the meantime, new SAR satellite sensors are launched, which improves the availability of SAR data with pertinent acquisition dates and viewing parameters. In this context, a brief introduction to these software packages and SAR data is given from the end-user pointof- view with an emphasis on their gratuitousness and respect of opensource concepts. From that work, the open-source processing package DORIS1 was chosen for the research activities at ESGT. In order to validate our choice, DORIS is studied in the framework of a DINSAR application. The software organization and the obtained results are crosscompared to those obtained with a second proprietary software, SARSCAPE. Experiments are carried out with satellite radar data acquired before and after the earthquake that occurred in Bam, Iran in 2003. The obtained results show differences that can be explained by different methods used to refine the orbital information in DORIS and in SARSCAPE. These differences do not prevent us from validating our choice and our use of DORIS as outcome of this comparison.