GMTSAR and NEST4A

Two new tools for interferometric SAR processing were released recently: GMTSAR and NEST4A.

Both GMTSAR and NEST4A are open source software. You can download GMTSAR directly from their homepage, however for NEST4a you will need to create an account first.

GMTSAR is developed by a group of researchers at the Scripps, San Diego State and University of Hawaii. David Sandwell, Rob Mellors and Paul Wessel are among the developers and they are currently looking for volunteers to develop processing scripts. GMTSAR is based on the popular Generic Mapping Tools and is capable of preprocessing raw SAR data into GMT generic SLC files, generating interferograms. It can create post-script files and KML files to be displayed on Google Earth. The GMTSAR website is also hosting a sample ALOS dataset to display the capabilities of the software.

NEST4A is developed by Array Systems Computing Inc. under ESA contract. The InSAR functionalities are developed with joint efforts of PPO.labs (Petar Marinkovic) and TU-Delft. As far as I understand, the underlying engine is based on DORIS, TU-Delft's object oriented InSAR processor. NEST4A is a graphical user interface (GUI) driven software, that allows you to process SAR data with a few clicks. NEST is based on BEAM and BEST, the earlier SAR toolboxes from ESA. Therefore it has many features on top of interferometric processing.

I've downloaded both of these toolboxes, but haven't had a chance to test the InSAR functionalities yet. If you test them, I'll be glad to hear your comments and opinions.

References

• GMTSAR homepage
• NEST homepage
• Generic Mapping Tools
• Array Systems Computing Inc.