Phase unwrapping for large SAR interferograms: statistical segmentation and generalized network models

Two-dimensional (2-D) phase unwrapping is a key step in the analysis of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data. While challenging even in the best of circumstances, this problem poses unique difficulties when the dimensions of the interferometric input data exceed the limits of one's computational capabilities. In order to deal with such cases, we propose a technique for applying the statistical-cost, network-flow phase-unwrapping algorithm (SNAPHU) of Chen and Zebker (2001) to large datasets. Specifically, we introduce a methodology whereby a large interferogram is partitioned into a set of several smaller tiles that are unwrapped individually and then divided further into independent,…