Deterministic Extraction of Building Parameters from High Resolution Sar Images

Urban structure detection, in terms of both geometric and electromagnetic features, from a single High Resolution (HR) SAR image is, nowadays, an interesting still open challenge. Within this framework a possible approach to extract information from a single HR SAR image is presented. We first define a set of geometric and radiometric parameters measurable on a SAR image of isolated buildings, and a set of geometric and electromagnetic parameters to be estimated; then we find a set of analytical expressions that relate parameters to be estimated to the measured ones. These quantitative relationships are individuated by appropriately modifying the material presented in some recently published papers in which, for an isolated building, the electromagnetic return to an active microwave sensor is analytically evaluated in closed form. The method is complete and has a wide range of applicability and can be exploited whether the scattering problem is addressed in the phasor domain or whether a pulsed imaging radar is considered. The obtained relationships linking parameters to be estimated to the measured ones lead to a system of equation: a solution scheme is presented for some significant particular cases.