Alaska SAR Facility Scientific SAR User’s Guide by

Preface This document is intended to provide an introduction and background to scientists wishing to interpret SAR image data. The coverage is necessarily brief but thorough references and citations are provided for the user who wishes to pursue the subject in greater depth. An excellent general text, which should be on the shelf of any serious SAR investigator, is the recent (1991) book by Curlander and McDonough. For a good elementary exposition on the complexities of SAR signal processing see Fitch's 1988 book. Short courses on the subject are offered periodically at UCLA Extension, (907) 474-7487. Other user's guides, listed in the Bibliography and References section, are also available. Printing limitations prevent the use of any example images in this document. Remote sensing images are best presented in large format photographic prints and can be reproduced fairly well with an offset press. Photocopies, however, are largely useless so we have attempted to work around the need for such illustrations. For appropriate examples, particularly in Sections 3 and 4, we again recommend the book by Curlander and McDonough.