Integration of colorized single-pol SAR data into optical image mosaics

Satellite image mosaics are commonly used for large-scale mapping purposes. Perpetual cloud cover may prohibit the mapping with electro-optical satellite imagery within a reasonable time interval, e.g. in tropical areas. In these cases, the additional use of SAR data can help to complement the image of the earth surface, as cloud independent spaceborne SAR data has been proven to be a valuable thematic and topographic mapping source [1]. An effective way to realize an integrated image mosaic is the colorization of high-resolution SAR imagery by applying statistical filters and the adaptation of these false colors with respect to an optical reference. The creation of SAR images with a land-cover related color scheme has been shown before [2]. But generally, the resulting images have no relationship to the color impression of an optical scene. The motivation of the technique described in this paper is · to create automatically colour classified products directly from single polarized SAR images · to create seamless mosaics from colored SAR images · to mosaic colored SAR images with electro-optical imagery.