Program Merges SAR Data on Terrain and Vegetation Heights

X/P Merge is a computer program that estimates ground-surface elevations and vegetation heights from multiple sets of data acquired by the GeoSAR instrument [a terrain-mapping synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) system that operates in the X and P bands]. X/P Merge software combines data from X- and P-band digital elevation models, SAR backscatter magnitudes, and interferometric correlation magnitudes into a simplified set of output topographical maps of ground-surface elevation and tree height.

For computational efficiency, inversions are performed by use of lookup tables. The program performs calibrations to remove biases from output estimates, calibrates interferometric correlation magnitudes by accounting for geometric and radiometric errors, differentiates between surface and vegetated areas, and, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, selects the lookup table corresponding to the best user-specified inversion approach.

This program was written by Paul Siqueira, Scott Hensley, Ernesto Rodriguez, and Marc Simard of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This software is available for commercial licensing. Please contact Karina Edmonds of the California Institute of Technology at (626) 395-2322. Refer to NPO-40268.