Appropriate PALSAR-1 & -2 products for STEP?

I want to do both conventional InSAR and offset tracking with ALOS PALSAR and ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (in Stripmap mode, not ScanSAR). I am ordering some new data from JAXA with a view to using it in STEP.

I would like to order SLC (Level 1.1) for the InSAR… I’m hoping I can still do offset tracking with it? Would I need to convert to GRD (or similar) first?

Is CEOS or GeoTIFF preferred for STEP?

Many thanks! :slight_smile:

only CEOS. SNAP cannot read ALOS metadata when delivered as Geotiffs.

SLC is required for InSAR, but it also works for offset tracking. The most important step is a proper coregistration. You could try if you get better results when you apply multi-looking before the actual offset tracking.

Many thanks Andreas!

Do you know if ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 Spotlight mode is also read and supported by STEP?

I think I was able to open all ALOS products so far, including both with 3 m spatial resolution.

grafik

Spotlight-mode Interferometry is not currently supported in SNAP.

The ALOS in GeoTiff reader is coming in the next release. However, the product doesn’t have all the metadata available in the CEOS format therefore for InSAR it’s recommended you order the CEOS L1.1 SLC data

Hello lvice,

Thank for the nice comments.
I’m using SNAP 6.0, does this version support ALOS-2 L1.1 GeoTIFF format?

Thank you.