A flexible scoring system to simplify reference scene selection for permanent scatterer interferometry using supplementary data

This paper proposes a method for quality assessment of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scenes to facilitate selection of a master scene for persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI). Parameters like perpendicular and temporal baseline or weather conditions at acquisition time are evaluated using a scoring system. By defining scoring rules every available information can be used for rating image quality thus helping to make a quick decision to find the best possible scene in a large data stack. The method can be further improved by weighting the single results as needed. The approach is successfully tested on an exemplary data stack containing 57 SAR images of ERS.