3-D synthetic aperture radar surveys

In synthetic-aperture-radar interferometry from satellite, the altimetric information is obtained from the phase difference of two images gathered by the same sensor during two successive passes along parallel or crossing orbits. The altimetric resolution of such a system depends on the satellite´s displacement in the cross-track direction. The satellite´s displacement, however, is limited by the effective ground sampling in the cross-track direction. For the sake of a greater altimetric resolution, the satellite´s displacement should be adapted to the terrain slope. A coarse altimetric map of the Panamint Valley area is constructed exploiting three repeated passes of the Seasat SAR satellite