• www.geodatenkatalog.de (S3L)
  •  
  •  
  •  

  Global Urban Footprint (GUF) - TSX/TDX - Global

The Global Urban Footprint® (GUF®) dataset is based on the radar (SAR) satellite imagery of the German satellites TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X. By creating the GUF database, scientists at the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have succeeded in using a newly developed method to generate a global raster map of the world’s built-up pattern in a so far unprecedented spatial resolution of about 12m per raster cell.

Using a fully automated processing system, a global coverage of more than 180,000 very high resolution SAR images (3m ground resolution) has been analyzed acquired between 2010 and 2013. Thereby, the backscatter amplitudes of the SAR data have been used in combination with derived textural information to delineate human settlements in a highly automated, complex decision-making process. The evaluation procedure based mainly on radar signals detects the characteristic vertical structures of human habitations – primarily built-up areas. In addition, auxiliary data such as digital elevation models have been included to improve the classification process. In total, over 20 million datasets were processed with a combined volume of about 320 terabytes. The final global maps show three coverage categories (e. g. in a B/W representation): Built-up areas (vertical structures only) in black, non-built-up surfaces in white, areas of no coverage by TSX/TDX satellites (NoData) as most parts of the oceans in grey.

The final product has been optimized for fast online access through web services by merging the 5 x 5 degree GUF tiles into a single global mosaic. Furthermore reduced resolution overviews have been generated with an interpolation algorithm, that computes the average value of all contribution pixels. The global mosaic uses PackBits compression to reduce file size.

(GUF® and Global Urban Footprint® are protected as trademarks.)

 
Citation proposal
German Aerospace Center (DLR) (2016) . Global Urban Footprint (GUF) - TSX/TDX - Global. https://gdk.gdi-de.org/geonetwork/srv/api/records/f167eb8a-b2d3-4f86-b0aa-fb246b08dcb3
 

Simple

Date ( Publication )
2016-11-18T00:00:00
Edition
Identifier
https://geoservice.dlr.de/catalogue/srv/metadata/f167eb8a-b2d3-4f86-b0aa-fb246b08dcb3
Presentation form
Digital map
Other citation details
Status
Completed

  Point of contact

German Aerospace Center (DLR)  

  Author

German Aerospace Center (DLR)  

Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 ( Theme )
  • Land cover
Keywords
  • Land
  • urbanization
  • global mapping
  • settlement patterns
  • TerraSAR-X
  • TanDEM-X
  • SAR
  • X-Band
  • TSX-1
  • TDX-1
  • texture
Access constraints
Copyright
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

Nutzungsbedingungen: A non-exclusive, spatially and temporally unlimited, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use GUF is granted free of charge for

- scientific purposes on the high resolution version of GUF® (0.4 arcseconds),

- non-commercial purposes on the low resolution version of the GUF® (2.8 arcseconds).

This license does not grant any commercial use of GUF® or products generated or derived by GUF®.

Use limitation
Nutzungseinschränkungen: GUF® is provided without any warranty. DLR is not liable for damage resulting from use.
Spatial representation type
Grid
Denominator
24000
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Topic category
  • Planning cadastre
N
S
E
W


Reference system identifier
EPSG / WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) / 7.4
Number of dimensions
2
Dimension name
Row
Dimension size
0
Resolution
12  m
Dimension name
Column
Dimension size
0
Resolution
12  m
Cell geometry
Area
Transformation parameter availability
false
Distribution format
  • ()

OnLine resource
Global Urban Footprint  

Global Urban Footprint

OnLine resource
GUF04_DLR_v1_Mosaic  

WMS access Global Urban Footprint (0.4 arcseconds - 12 m), for scientific use only

OnLine resource
GUF28_DLR_v1_Mosaic  

WMS access Global Urban Footprint (2.8 arcseconds - 84 m), for non-commercial use only

OnLine resource
KML Global Urban Footprint (0.4 arcseconds - 12 m)  

KML Global Urban Footprint (0.4 arcseconds - 12 m)

OnLine resource
KML Global Urban Footprint (2.8 arcseconds - 84 m)  

KML Global Urban Footprint (2.8 arcseconds - 84 m)

OnLine resource
DLR-GUF License Agreement and Order Form  

DLR-GUF License Agreement and Order Form

OnLine resource
DLR-GUF Product Specifications  

DLR-GUF Product Specifications

OnLine resource
GUF References  

GUF References

Hierarchy level
Dataset

Domain consistency

Measure identification
INSPIRE / Conformity_001

Conformance result

Date ( Publication )
2010-12-08
Explanation
See the referenced specification
Pass
true
Statement

The Global Urban Footprint® (GUF®) dataset is based on the radar (SAR) satellite imagery of the German satellites TerraSAR X and TanDEM X. Using a fully automated processing system, the so-called Urban Footprint Processor, a global coverage of more than 180,000 very high resolution SAR images (3m ground resolution) has been analyzed, mainly acquired between 2010 and 2013. Thereby, the backscatter amplitudes of the SAR data have been used in combination with derived textural information to delineate human settlements in a highly automated, complex decision-making process. In addition, auxiliary data such as digital elevation models have been included to improve the classification process. The data collection of satellite imagery was performed mainly between 2011 and 2012 (93 %), with single scenes with more recent acquisition dates (of 2013 / 2014) used to fill data gaps.

For more details see:

Esch, T., Marconcini, M., Felbier, A., Roth, A., Heldens, W., Huber, M., Schwinger, M., Taubenböck, H., Müller, A., Dech, S. (2013) Urban Footprint Processor – Fully Automated Processing Chain Generating Settlement Masks from Global Data of the TanDEM-X Mission. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2013. Pp. 1617-1621. ISSN 1545-598X, DOI 10.1109/LGRS.2013.2272953 (see: http://elib.dlr.de/83318/ )

Description
All 5° x 5° tiles have been merged with GDAL (v2.1.1) into a global mosaic for fast web delivery.
Description
Reduced resolution overviews have been generated with average interpolation using GDAL (v2.1.1).

gmd:MD_Metadata

File identifier
f167eb8a-b2d3-4f86-b0aa-fb246b08dcb3   XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Date stamp
2024-06-20T13:06:53
Metadata standard name
ISO 19115:2003/19139
Metadata standard version
1.0

  Point of contact

German Aerospace Center (DLR)  

 
 

  Overviews

quicklook_guf28_Munich_Alps_2000x2000.png
quicklook_guf28_Munich_Alps_2000x2000_s.png

  Provided by

  Views

  • INSPIRE
  • Simple
  • Full
  • XML
f167eb8a-b2d3-4f86-b0aa-fb246b08dcb3   Access to the portal Read here the full details and access to the data.

  Associated resources

Not available


  •  
  •