RTC Product
The Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC) SAR Backscatter product consists of radar backscatter normalized with respect to the topography. The RTC product is generated from Sentinel-1 as the input dataset and has the short name RTC-S1. The RTC-S1 product is a Level-2 product that is projected onto pre-defined UTM/Polar stereographic map projection systems. The Copernicus global 30 m (GLO-30) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is the reference DEM used to correct for the impacts of topography and to geocode the product. The RTC product maps signals largely related to the physical properties of the ground scattering objects, such as surface roughness and soil moisture and/or vegetation. The RTC product also serves as the basis for the DSWx-S1 and DIST-S1 products. The product is provided in a GeoTIFF file format and has a posting of 30 m. All products will be accessible through the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC).
Below we provide the RTC product specification document as well as the corresponding product samples conforming to the detailed specifications.
RTC for Sentinel-1 (RTC-S1)
RTC-S1 Product Specification Document
This document describes the specifications of the OPERA Level-2 Radiometric Terrain-Corrected (RTC) product that uses Sentinel-1 SLC data as the primary image-based input.
RTC-S1-STATIC Product Specification Document
This document describes the specifications of the OPERA Level-2 Radiometric Terrain-Corrected SAR Backscatter from Sentinel-1 (RTC-S1) Static Layers (RTC-S1-STATIC) product. The RTC-S1-STATIC product provides radar geometry layers, such as local incidence angle or incidence angle, that describe the Sentinel-1 acquisition geometry associated with the OPERA RTC-S1 products with the same burst ID.
With the following accuracy (details are captured in RTC-S1 calval database)
| Accuracy Assessment Method | L2 Accuracy Requirements | RTC-S1 |
|---|---|---|
Absolute Geolocation Accuracy | Less than 6 m for 80% of validation data considered | 100% of validation data met requirement |
Relative Geolocation Accuracy | Less than 6 m for 80% of validation data considered | 100% of validation data met requirement |
Terrain Flattening Performance | Less than 1 db difference between foreslope and backslope for 80% of validation data considered | 100% of validation data met requirement |
Jupyter Notebook Tutorials
Guides below are written in Jupyter notebook environment outline and are intended to outline product introductions and showcase select applications.
- Mosaicking and visualizing RTC
How to mosaic and visualize RTC-S1 images.
RTC Application
To contact us or give feedback: opera.sep@jpl.nasa.gov
CL#21-6388, CL#24-1955, CL#24-1953