Extraction of Building Heights from VHR SAR Imagery using an Iterative Simulation and Match Procedure

The new spaceborne very high resolution (VHR) SAR sensors onboard the TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMED satellites have a spatial resolution of up to 1 meter. In VHR SAR data, features from individual urban structures (like buildings) can be identified in their characteristic settings in urban settlement patterns. In this paper, we present a novel methodology for the height estimation for generic man made structures from single power SAR data. The proposed approach is based on the definition of a hypothesis on the height of the building and on the simulation of a SAR image for that hypothesis. Then a matching procedure is applied between the estimated and the actual SAR images in order to validate the height assumption. The process is iterated for different initial height assumptions until the matching function is satisfied and thus the building height is estimated. The efficiency and the properties of the proposed method are demonstrated for the height estimation of flat- and gable roof buildings from a VHR airborne SAR scene and for a pyramid in Giza (Egypt) from VHR TerraSAR-X SPOT beam data.