Exploring temporal patterns: Visualization of PSI displacement time series using UMAP

Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a well-established technique for accurately monitoring ground deformation. However, interpreting large volumes of resulting displacement time series can be challenging. This paper presents an approach to visualize PSI time series to facilitate its interpretation in a spatial context. By employing the dimension reduction method Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP), the time series are projected into a three-dimensional latent feature space, revealing clusters of similar temporal patterns. The temporal information is encoded as color (RGB) and visualized on a map. The resulting visualizations provide valuable insights into the dynamics of ground deformation and have potential applications in detecting geophysical phenomena. The efficacy of the approach in capturing and visualizing ground deformation dynamics is demonstrated through a case study conducted in a seismic active region located in the north-west of the Peloponnese peninsula.