PROJECT TITLE :

Assignment of Persistent Scatterers to Buildings

ABSTRACT:

This paper deals with the assignment of persistent scatterers (PSs) to buildings represented by a three-D city model. Affiliating PSs to real-world structures is highly relevant for two reasons. Initial, it facilitates interpretation of PS deformation estimates and can be even used to enhance those estimates using advanced deformation models for complete structures. Second, such an assignment permits the compilation of a PS density map for the structures beneath investigation. This helps to mitigate the matter of opportunistic sampling, which is one among the main drawbacks of PS interferometry (PSI). Specifically, a framework in which the PSs are geometrically aligned with the town model and assigned to the bounding surfaces of the one models is made public. Cases where such an assignment can not be established are attributed to generalization of the town model or to locations where the reflection mechanism inducing the PS will not correspond to a real-world structure. From the assignments, a density map is compiled, and the main factors driving the PS density are identified and discussed: surface structure, shadowing, side dependency, and quasi-random effects (e.g., temporary changes due to assembling renovation activities). The test site for this paper is located in the inner town space of Berlin. PS results of two high-resolution spotlight TerraSAR-X data stacks of various pass directions are used. The buildings are represented by a level-of-detail a pair of town model and an airborne light detection and ranging knowledge set.