EVALUATION OF SAMPLES OF THE ASTER GLOBAL DEM USING STAR-3i AIRBORNE INTERFEROMETRIC SAR DATA

A recent Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity (AOCO) [1], offers an invitation to interested parties to participate in an exercise to validate the new ASTER Global DEM (GDEM). At the time of this abstract submission, the ASTER GDEM has not yet been released but is expected to be available for validation purposes in early 2009 and for general use later in 2009. The validation program is co-sponsored by METI (the Japanese Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry), NASA and USGS. Prospective participants in the validation are required to submit a proposal to the sponsors of AOCO, detailing approach, data sources to be used as reference, and other information. In particular, the AOCO is seeking validation in areas external to the continental USA (CONUS) where USGS will perform its validation. Assuming a successful AOCO submission, this paper will describe the results of an ASTER GDEM validation activity covering a 1°x 1° tile in Germany, using the DSM (Digital Surface Model), DTM (Digital Terrain Model) and ORI (Ortho-rectified Radar Image) products created using the STAR-3i interferometric airborne SAR system as part of the NEXTMap Europe program, summarized in [2].