IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite Helps Generate Terrain Maps of Rugged Western China

Norcross, GA — ERDAS announces that the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) in the People’s Republic of China is using IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM and IMAGINE SAR Interferometry for a surveying and mapping project in western China.

The project is being conducted by five of the provincial branches of the SBSM, and involves surveying 200,000 square kilometers of land within the Hengduan Mountains. The terrain in this area is rugged and often obscured by fog or clouds. Because of these challenges, the SBSM decided to use radar mapping, known for its precision and ability to provide detailed information that cannot be extracted using traditional photogrammetric methods.

SBSM and its provincial branches evaluated several technologies for processing radar data, ultimately selecting IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM and IMAGINE SAR Interferometry for this complex work. Beijing Digital LandView Technology Co., Ltd., ERDAS’ distributor in China, demonstrated IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite for SBSM and  worked with them to generate preliminary DEMs using these products.

IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM and IMAGINE SAR Interferometry are components of ERDAS’ IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite, a bundle of specialized modules for processing radar data within the ERDAS IMAGINE environment. IMAGINE Radar Mapping Suite includes IMAGINE Radar Interpreter™, IMAGINE OrthoRadar™, IMAGINE SAR Interferometry™ and IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM™. IMAGINE SAR Interferometry includes Interferometric SAR (InSAR), which creates accurate, high-resolution DEMs from SAR image pairs, Coherence Change Detection (CCD), which produces georeferenced raster and vector change maps, and Differential Interferometric SAR (D-InSAR), which enables extremely precise mapping of surface displacement. IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM enables users to extract terrain height information from stereo pairs of RADARSAT data to generate accurate DEMs.

After the western China mapping project is complete, SBSM plans to create a database of the information to assist the central and local governments of China with better serving the public.

For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 877 GO ERDAS, or visit www.erdas.com.

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ERDAS – The Earth to Business Company – helps organizations harness the information of the changing earth for greater advantage. ERDAS creates geospatial business systems that transform our earth’s data into business information, enabling individuals, businesses and public agencies to quickly access, manage, process and share that information from anywhere. Using secure geospatial information, ERDAS solutions improve employee, customer and partner visibility to information, enabling them to respond faster and collaborate better. It also means better decision-making, increased productivity and new revenue streams. Welcome to ERDAS: a trusted name, with a new energy, and a new vision. Earth to business starts here. ERDAS is a part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden. For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.erdas.com.