Generation of DEM by radargrammetric techniques

Thanks to the signal processing applied to radar signal, radar systems can provide images with a very high resolution. With regard to these properties, one can estimate that radar images are used to get elevation terrain considering the basic characteristics of a radar image. This paper examines one way to produce DEM (Digital Elevation Models) from a mountainous area (the French Alps). So, we organize the discussion in three parts. First, we present the basic operations that the radargrammetric processing requires to be performed. So we deal with the different steps to obtain a DEM. Secondly, we expose two classical image matching improvements: the epipolar geometry and the pyramidal scheme. At the end, we present the results of DEM generation from a SIRC shuttle mission image pair and the way to improve these results.