Airborne SAR stereo restitution in a mountainous area of Costa Rica: first results

Presents a fully digital method for the stereo extraction of planimetric and altimetric features from digital airborne SAR data in stereoscopic mode. The method uses a photogrammetric approach. Image analysis is done with a digital stereo workstation (DVP) using a low-cost hardware (PC). To test the limits of the DVP system with actual data, a challenging airborne SAR stereopair was used from a mountainous area (2000 m) in the Cordillera Centrale (Costa Rica) from the SAREX-92 mission. Compared with a 1:50 000 topographic map, the first results show a planimetric accuracy of 20-35 m for well identifiable features and an altimetric accuracy of 40-50 m. These results have to be confirmed with more precise digital topographic data