Potential and limits of InSAR data for the reconstruction of buildings

The automatic reconstruction of buildings for the generation of city models is of great interest for different tasks. 3D information can be directly obtained from both, laser (LIDAR) and radar (InSAR) measurements. The data acquisition by SAR is described, with emphasis on the special properties of the interferometric SAR principle. A segmentation approach for building reconstruction is proposed. In the case of InSAR, special effects are taken into account, which are caused by the side-looking illumination. The estimation of the signal noise is considered in the segmentation process. Besides the elevation, the intensity information is exploited to detect building areas. The results show that building reconstruction is possible from InSAR, but the achievable level of detail cannot be compared with LIDAR. Inherent geometric constraints which limit the reconstruction of buildings from SAR data of dense urban areas are discussed.