ALOS2 ScanSAR functionality

Dear developers,

is it planned in the near future to implement ALOS2 ScanSAR functionality into the toolbox? I am working with level 1.1 full-aperture data and want to get the alpha, entropy and anisotropy parameters.

Thank you.

You can derive alpha, entropy… only with quad-pol data. According to this table, ALOS-2 ScanSAR only features dual-polarized data…

If you have quad-pol data, then maybe ASF MapReady is an option to you.
https://www.asf.alaska.edu/data-tools/mapready/

I’m not sure if it really supports ALOS-2 ScanSAR, but you can derive polarimetric features with it:

Thank you, ABraun, for your quick answer, but this is just wrong.

Of course, there is a dual-pol decomposition after Cloude to get to alphy, entropy and (for the dual-pol case meaningless) anisotropy. And the best thing is, this is already implemented in SNAP!

So, the only thing is needed is an import routine for ALOS-2 ScanSAR level 1.1 full-aperture data.

MapReady, RAT and PolsarPro can’t handle ScanSAR data, only SarScape can do intensity processing, but no polarimetric processing. Therefor, it would be very nice to have a reading routine for ScanSAR in SNAP.

And, I am using this dual-pol data, because I am an ALOS2 PI and this is the data I can get for our test sites. Of course, I would like to use quad-pol data, but this is simply not available most of the times. I have quad-pol Radarsat 2 data, but this is C-Band and I want to use L-band for soil moisture retrieval.

Thanks again and I hope to get further comments.

yes, you can decompose dual-pol data but it is heavily discussed if they provide valid results regarding entropy, alpha…

Exactly, and my goal is to analyse the information content of alpha and entropy with regard to our measured surface parameters (soil moisture, plant biomass, surface roughness on agricultural fields). Maybe this would generate a further contribution to that discussion. Thanks again, ABraun.