SAR interferometry: Software, data format, and data quality

SAR interferometry (InSAR) is on the way to becoming operational. The main hurdles of SAR interferometric processing have already been solved. However, solutions for sophisticated processing steps such as phase unwrapping, etc., are still being investigated. Furthermore, research on the potentials and limitations of various applications has been carried out. Nevertheless, some aspects of InSAR software packages such as a common data format and quantitative quality measures for interferometric products ore still widely neglected and are the focus of this paper. Basic information about technical specifications of available commercial and non-commercial software packages was collected. A general format for SAR interferometric data is proposed. The importance of the data quality and suitable quality measures for InSAR data is discussed.