Minds Behind Maps Thomas Ager: The Essentials of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) - MBM#60
Thomas Ager worked for 30y at the National Geospatial Agency on Radar satellite images and recently released ‘The Essentials of SAR’ a book breaking down Synthetic Aperture Radar for, as he puts it, “non electrical engineers”
Sponsor: Planet
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About Tom
- His book: The Essentials of SAR (Affiliate Link)
Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.
- My Interview with Iain Woodhouse: Understanding Radar Satellite Images
- Tom’s interview on Project Geospatial
- Mapping London’s deformation
- 70cm mapping of the Moon
- Book (and poem!) recommendation
- Who Is Fourier? (Affiliate Link)
- Project Geospatial: https://www.youtube.com/@Projectgeospatial
- Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas
Timestamps
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:13) - Sponsor: Planet
(02:28) - Tom describes himself
(04:13) - National Geospatial Agency
(05:46) - Why should anyone care about radar images?
(09:52) - Why not just fly plane?
(10:54) - SAR in the 80s
(23:14) - Finding early use in SAR
(27:09) - Skepticism in new tech
(30:09) - Phase
(35:32) - Bringing poetry to physics
(42:01) - The most astonishing element of SAR
(48:41) - Future of SAR
(51:51) - The next step
(56:49) - The language issue
(59:45) - Tom's book
(01:02:46) - Tom's book dedication
(01:04:49) - Teaching
(01:07:40) - Getting NGA's approval on the book
(01:09:09) - Doing what people tell you not to do
(01:11:34) - Machine Learning in SAR
(01:15:55) - Book & Podcast recommendation