Detection and 3D Visualization of Deformations for High-Rise Buildings in Shenzhen, China from High-Resolution TerraSAR-X Datasets

Shenzhen, a coastal city, has changed from a small village to a supercity since the late 1980s. With the rapid development of its population and economy, ground disasters also occur frequently. These disasters bring great harm to human life and surface architecture. However, there is a lack of regular ground measurement data in this area. Permanent scatterer interferometry (PSI) technology can detect millimeter deformation of urban surface. In this paper, the building height and deformation from 2008 to 2010 in the Futian District of Shenzhen are obtained by using this technique alongside high-resolution TerraSAR-X data. For a visual expression of the result, we export the permanent scatterer (PS) points on buildings to Google Earth for 3D visualization after ortho-rectification of the PS height. Based on the Google Earth 3D model, the temporal and spatial characteristics of the building deformation became obvious. The InSAR measurements show that during the study period, the deformation rates of the Futian area are between −10 and 10 mm/year, and deformation is mainly distributed in a few buildings. These unstable activities can be attributed to human activities and the natural climate, which provides a reference for the local government to carry out a survey of surface deformation, as well as the monitoring and management of urban buildings, in the future.