BOREAS RSS-16 Level-3b DC-8 AIRSAR Synoptic (SY) Images

Data cover portions of NSA and SSA from 12-Aug-1993 to 31-Jul-1995

12-Aug-1993 SSA  -- 20 images in this set
13-Aug-1993 NSA  --  9 images in this set
21-Jul-1994 SSA  -- 10 images in this set
31-Jul-1995 SSA  --  4 image  in this set
-------------------------------------------------
                 -- 43 images total in this set

Data represent radar backscatter for all possible combinations of 
horizontal and vertical transmit and receive polarizations
(HH, HV, VH, and VV) in compressed Stokes matrix format, which
has 10 bytes per pixel.  For each scene, there are 3 separate files,
usually 1 each for the P (5.7cm), L (25cm), and C (68cm) frequencies, 
each containing one of the possible transmit/receive polarizations.  The
band/polarization combinations vary by date/time (scene), and some scenes
have more than one file triplet.  Resolution is 6m in range and 12m
in azimuth orientations.  The pixels in each line of the image vary across
the range (constant azimuth value).  The images are thus rotated
90 degrees with respect to AIRSAR imagery in the azimuth format. 

See http://airsar.jpl.nasa.gov "AIRSAR General Reference Manual" for
complete details about the sensor and data formats.

File Format  
===========

3 5,120 byte ASCII header records:
JPL AIRSAR New Header Record
JPL AIRSAR Old Header Record
JPL AIRSAR Parameter Header Record
Offset of data from start of file:  15360 bytes

The number of lines and samples is given in the New Header Record.  All of
the files in this set had 

Lines: 5088
Samples: 1280

Example Image
======= =====

The 3 separate P, L, and C files were loaded as 4-byte IEEE floating point
data after conversion from VAX 4-byte floating point format.  The separate
images were then merged into a 3-band image (band 1 = P, band 2 = L, and
band 3 = C).  The image was subsampled by 10 in X and Y directions using
the Imagine "Degrade" function (considerably reducing image speckle)
to create

airsar-sy-ssa-08-12-1993-1752-plc-dg10.img 
   [Source: HDDT SY3961P, SY3961L, and SY3961C]

A JPEG preview image were created using the Imagine export function
with 2 standard deviation stretch and 75% quality factor:

airsar-sy-ssa-08-12-1993-1752-lcp-dg10.jpg

In the JPEG, L/HH is displayed as R, C/VV is displayed as G, and
P/HH is displayed as B.