Integrating point, curve and area descriptors into geospatial databases for metric resolution SAR image analysis

Image understanding and retrieval for metric SAR data needs to be tackled by specific algorithms in order to exploit the specific metric scale scene characteristics and the typical sensor phenomenology. A composite approach is developed to this end. Extraction, characterization and simplification/grouping algorithms are employed together with super-resolution for isolated bright scatterers, scatterer alignments and uniform backscatter and texture areas to populate a geospatial database. The generated descriptors can be navigated via different data viewers for scene understanding and data retrieval applications. Examples on real metric SAR data are given.