Alaska Satellite Facility

Training Resources

Collection of on-demand SAR data webinars

ASF series of on-demand processing tutorials

Library of user guides to get started with ASF’s data tools

Data recipes make working with SAR Data easier

Training notices

New training opportunities are posted here as they become available.

New ASF StoryMap Tutorial: Sentinel-1 Interferometric Coherence and Backscatter Image Services

The Global Seasonal Sentinel-1 Interferometric Coherence and Backscatter (GSSICB) dataset provides a unique perspective of changes in seasonal global coherence and backscatter values measured using repeat-pass Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) single-look complex data. The dataset was derived from satellite observations made over a one-year period, 2019-2020, and includes seasonal coherence and backscatter measurements covering most land masses from 82 degrees north to 78 degrees south latitude.

GSSICB data are publicly available from ASF and the AWS Registry of Open Data. To facilitate use of the data, ASF has created image services for some of the dataset products, and these can be accessed by any web mapping application or GIS software that supports ArcGIS Image Services or WMS layers. A separate service is published for each season and polarization of each data type.

Heidi Kristenson of ASF has created a StoryMap tutorial that explains where the GSSICB image services may be accessed and demonstrates, through interactive examples, the use of the different image layers available. Some basic concepts of SAR and SAR interferometry are also provided, which are helpful in image interpretation.

Learn more about the Sentinel-1 Interferometric Coherence and Backscatter Image Services through the interactive StoryMap:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1d134497e47a47fda5ff2ddf05ec0015

Visit the ASF website to learn more about the GSSICB dataset and download products:
https://asf.alaska.edu/datasets/derived/global-seasonal-sentinel-1-interferometric-coherence-and-backscatter-dataset/

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Applications – Professional Certificate

This is a new intermediate-level AlaskaX Professional Certification program. This self-paced course is offered in three sections focusing on SAR …

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Webinar: Jump-Start SAR Data Analysis in the Cloud with ASF’s OpenSARLab

This webinar introduces OpenSARLab as a free, limited-access service for SAR processing using a cloud-hosted Jupyter Hub located alongside the …

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ARSET False Color Image of Agricultural Area

NASA Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET)

ARSET offers self-paced training modules and live webinars at introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels. Most webinar materials are also available …

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Webinars

The day one video of the NISAR ISRO Community Workshop, held on August 3, 2023, covers an introduction to SAR, an introduction to Vertex, and an introduction to InSAR and HyP3. Presenters include Alex Lewandowski, Heidi Kristenson, and Forrest Williams. Slides from the workshop can be accessed here.

The day 2 video of the NISAR ISRO Community Workshop held August 4, 2023, includes an introduction to Time Series with INSAR (SBAS, PS, combined), a question and answer session, a walkthrough of a Time Series notebook, and the actual running of a Notebook. Alex Lewandowski and Forrest WIlliams lead day 2 presentations. Slides from the workshop can be accessed here.

Synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, which uses the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum, is ideal in that it can penetrate cloud cover and “see through” darkness and weather, allowing a unique view of flood inundation, landcover changes, and changes in the Earth’s surface from earthquakes and landslides. This workshop video provides an introduction to using SAR data, including wavelength, frequency, polarization, etc.

(Note: Part 1 in this NASA series does not pertain to SAR data and has been excluded here.) 

The Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC) has a number of tools for accessing, processing and analyzing SAR data. This workshop video provides information on the various datasets, as well as demonstrates data access and use through ASF DAAC tools and services.

This webinar will include a basic introduction to SAR data collection, the datasets that are available from NASA’s ASF DAAC, and the processing required to extract useful information from the data. Focus will be on the Sentinel-1 dataset, discussing the implications of wavelength and polarization, differences between SLC and GRD products, and approaches for generating analysis-ready datasets from amplitude and phase data.

This webinar demonstrates approaches for using SAR datasets in GIS environments to detect landscape change and map flooding events. With a focus on Sentinel-1 datasets, the presenter discusses options for generating Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC) datasets, and present workflows using both ArcGIS and QGIS software. In addition, the presenter will demonstrate how to use the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) custom ArcGIS Toolbox to perform geoprocessing tasks, and explain how to achieve the same results using the geoprocessing tools available directly in the ArcGIS and QGIS platforms.

In this webinar you will learn how to use asf_search, a new Python library for the search and discovery of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, created by NASA’s Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC). Available through PyPI and Conda, asf_search simplifies programmatic data discovery and download, allowing users to find and download SAR data with just a few lines of Python. Numerous search types are supported, such as geographic searches, granule searches, and baseline searches. Additionally, downloading data is made simple. We will be looking at common data discovery workflows used within ASF DAAC’s Vertex search and discovery web application, and how those same workflows can be accomplished through Python using asf_search.

Additional useful resources — the story of ASF, SAR data applications, data recipes, tools and services. Subscribe to our channel to be notified of new content when it becomes available.

On Demand Processing Tutorials

This video shows how to use Vertex to process SAR Data for you, as the presenter goes through each step of how to work with the on-demand processing queue.

This page takes you through ordering RTC Products through Vertex. You can
step through the online slideshow to learn how to find and order products for processing.

On this page you can scroll through the tutorial to learn how to find Sentinel-1 scenes in ASF’s Vertex Data Search portal. Use the navigation bar at the top of the screen to access the Baseline or SBAS tutorials directly if you’re already familiar with the Vertex search interface.

Learn about ASF’s water masking option for On-Demand Sentinel-1 InSAR and why it may be important for you. This tutorial demonstrates the impact that water masking can have on your phase unwrapping results, and illustrates the change that we made to our water masking approach in September 2022.

Users can submit Sentinel-1 SLC pairs for processing through ASF’s Data Search Vertex portal, and the processed On Demand InSAR products are available for download within about an hour. The InSAR On Demand! Story Map describes how to search for data and submit it for processing. This Story Map explores the contents of the InSAR product package, and demonstrates techniques for interacting with and interpreting the data.

User Guides

Data Recipes

Data Recipes help make using SAR data easier