Occluded building height estimation from single HR SAR image based on an iterative model matching technique

Based on the analysis of occluded buildings in high resolution SAR images, a novel method for occluded building height estimation was proposed. First, a projection model for SAR building signature prediction from a 3D parametric model was constructed. Second, a likelihood function for SAR building signature evaluation was formulated. Finally, the parametric models with different height parameters were evaluated with the actual SAR image by the likelihood function. The estimated building height corresponded to the parametric model which reached a maximum likelihood value. Comparative experimental results show that the proposed method is more effective in estimating building height even under partial occlusion.