Summer courses
In 2005 I initiated two summer courses covering the principles and applications of SAR and InSAR, each of them one week long. These courses have been offered every year since then and more than 100 students have already benefited from these offerings. The courses drew from a wide audience, from internal UAF graduate students, over national agencies and companies, to international students from Germany, Japan, Russia, Scotland and Thailand.
Mornings include theoretical lectures. Afternoons include hands on experience with data and software tools. This course format is certainly very intense but well appreciated and attended by professionals that do not have the luxury to attend a semester long course at UAF.
Seminar series
In 2002, I initiated the ASF seminar series which initially included short, half-an-hour technical presentations. The goal was to enhance the SAR related knowledge within ASF and to give colleagues within the Geophysical Institute the chance to learn more about SAR. In the meantime we have had presentations on the basics of SAR and InSAR as well as some of their applications. I broadened the scope of the seminar to include presentations on broader remote sensing and GIS topics. The seminar is now also available as a credited course.
I have given a number of presentations myself. The slides of these presentations can be found below.
- Introduction to SAR interferometry (PDF - 2.0 MB)
- InSAR processing (PDF - 437 K)
- Digital elevation models (PDF - 622 K)
- Map projections (PDF - 588 K)
- Height systems (PDF - 73 K)
- Generating an InSAR DEM using the ASF software tools (PDF - 2.1 MB)
- Introduction to the Radarsat Geophysical Processor System (PDF - 1.9 MB)
- Remote Sensing: Data formats and software packages (PDF - 1021 K)
- Geocoding Remote Sensing Data (PDF - 892 K)
- Digital Image Filtering (PDF - 1.8 MB)
- Atmospheric and Radiometric Corrections for Remote Sensing Data (PDF - 444 K)
- Terrain correction of SAR imagery (PDF - 376 K)
- Terrain correction and ortho-rectification (PDF - 909 K)
- Remote sensing data - Status and future (PDF - 2.1 MB)
2007
- Making a case for full-polarimetric radar remote sensing (Jeremy Nicoll, 26-Sep-07) (PDF - 4.3 MB)
- DInSAR - Sub-cm deformation monitoring from space (Franz Meyer, 10-Oct-07) (PDF - 15 MB)
- Remote Sensing of Changing Permafrost Landscapes in North Siberia - Projects and Some Results (Guido Grosse, 07-Nov-07) (PDF - 11 MB)
- Volcanic Ash Modeling for North Pacific Volcanoes: Automated Operational Monitoring and Virtual Globes (Peter Webley, 21-Nov-07) (PDF - 18 MB)
2006
- Acquisition and Processing of Airborne Digital Photos and Thermal Images for Improved Habitat Mapping in Southeast Alaska (Anupma Prakash, 04-Oct-06) (PDF - 1.9 MB)
- Deriving Wind Speed from Synthetic Aperture Radar Images (Jeremy Nicoll, 18-Oct-06) (PDF - 12 MB)
- Satellite Observations and Analyses of NOPAC Volcanoes (Ken Dean, 01-Nov-06) (PDF - 12 MB)
- Monitoring Alaskan Waters with SAR Theory and Practice (Don Atwood, 15-Nov-06) (PDF - 17 MB)
- Bradford Washburn: A Life of Exploration (Mike Sfraga, 29-Nov-06) (PDF - 9.8 MB)
2005
- Using SAR to examine landfast sea ece extent and variabilty (Andy Mahoney, 12-Apr-05) (PDF - 4.9 MB)
- Polarimetric SAR: Applications and calibration (Phil Utley, 26-Apr-05) (PDF - 3.6 MB)
- InSAR imaging of Aleutian volcanoes (Zhong Lu, 29-Sep-05) (PDF - 3.9 MB)
- Satellite Radar Remote Sensing (Zhong Lu, 30-Sep-05) (PDF - 5.3 MB)
- Physical properties of the Antarctic ice sheet observed with RADARSAT-1 (Ken Jezek, 04-Oct-05) (PDF - 1.5 MB)
- GIS Approaches to Assessing Landscape Change: Landcover Mapping and Permafrost Degradation (Torre Jorgenson, 18-Oct-05) (PDF - 2.0 MB)
- Ozone Depletion 20 years on (Richard Collins, 01-Nov-05) (PDF - 13 MB)
- GIS mapping and data modeling of wildlife and habitats: Lessons and applications (Falk Huettmann, 15-Nov-05) (PDF - 3.2 MB)
2004
- Thermal remote sensing - Challenges in hot spot detection (Anupma Prakash, 09-Mar-04) (PDF - 2.4 MB)
- Recent applications of GIS at the ASF (Chris Wyatt, 19-Oct-04) (PDF - 5.0 MB)
2003
- The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada: Change Detection with Real and Synthetic Aperture Radar Since 1981 (Martin Jeffries, 19-Oct-04) (PDF - 37 MB)
- Patterns of Wind-Drifted Snow on the Alaskan Arctic Slope Detected with ERS-1 interferometric SAR (Shusun Li, 23-Sep-03) (PDF - 2.5 MB)
- Landfast ice in the Laptev Sea: Probing a frozen estuary with synthetic aperture radar (Hajo Eicken, 18-Nov-03) (PDF - 8.5 MB)
2002
- SAR Geometry and Backscatter (Jeremy, 27-Feb-02) (PDF - 1.9 MB)
- SAR Processing (Jeremy Nicoll, 27-Mar-02) (PDF - 932 K)
- SAR Image Quality (Jeff Lipscomb, 10-Apr-02) (PDF - 2.9 MB)
- Radiometric Calibration (Jeff Lipscomb, 24-Apr-02) (PDF - 2.7 MB)
- Thermal Noise in SAR (Wade Albright, 08-May-02) (PDF - 1.4 MB)
- A introduction to Synthetic Aperature RADAR (Jeremy Nicoll, 05-Dec-02) (PDF - 2.7 MB)
Regular InSAR course
I am one of the co-instructors of the "InSAR and its applications" (GEOS 639) course. Apart from giving a number of lectures, I provided hands-on training in the use of the ASF software tools and led other lab exercises.
The slides of my lectures are available here:
- Geometric distortions
- Map projections (PDF - 365K)
- Geocoding (PDF - 354K)
- Terrain correction (PDF - 1.2MB)
- Height systems (PDF - 77K)
- Data selection (PDF - 790K)
- SAR processing (PDF - 2.4MB)
- Processing convolution
- Introduction to InSAR (PDF - 841K)
- Introduction to the Interferometric Processing System (IPS) (PDF - 58K)
- IPS configuration file (PDF - 52K)
- IPS default values file (PDF - 9.4K)
- SAR interferometric processing (PDF - 491K)
- InSAR processing flow (PDF - 93K)
- Limiting factors for InSAR (PDF - 478K)
- Phase unwrapping (PDF - 877K)
- DEM generation (PDF - 1.6MB)
- Volcanic eruptions (PDF - 2.6MB)
- Seismic events (PDF - 4.6MB)
- Future of InSAR (PDF - 19.1 MB)
Workshops and short courses
Here is a selection of a courses and trainings I have given in the past:
| SAR Data and Its Applications (half day) | Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing conference, Portland, Oregon | 2008 |
| Making SAR accessible (half day) | American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing conference, Tampa, Florida | 2007 |
| International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, San Jose, Costa Rica | 2007 | |
| Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference, Fairbanks, Alaska | 2007, 2008 | |
| SAR training course (one week) | Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 2007 |
Guest lectures
I routinely give guest lectures (since 2002) in the GEOS 422 course introducing the concepts and applications of SAR and SAR interferometry.
- Microwave remote sensing (PDF - 6.3 MB)
- SAR interferometry (PDF - 2.3 MB)
- Map projections (PDF - 66 K)
- Height systems (PDF - 77 K)