Building layover detection in SAR images via image translation

Abstract

Conventionally image translation is used to convert synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to optical ones to increase interpretability. Due to the different imaging natures of SAR range sensing and optical directional projection, it is within the expectation that some kinds of SAR images could be reasonably translated into optical ones, while others not. Arguably, less good patches in the translated image could act as a potential indicator of salient differences of the two imaging mechanisms. Following this line of thought, considering in urban SAR images, the layover is mainly caused by buildings, we proposed a method to detect building layovers in SAR images by evaluating the correlation of the original SAR image and the translated one by the cycle-translation, that is, from SAR to optical to SAR translation. Because the presence of building is the main factor of the layover phenomenon in urban SAR images, building layover areas in SAR images are expected to be less correlated, or they should have a low correlation coefficient. Preliminary experiments validate our underlying principle and method.