The shift of polarization orientation angle ψat the maximum of co-polarized or cross-polarized back-scattering signature can be used to estimate the surface slopes. It has been utilized to generate the digital elevation mapping (DEM) and terrain topography using two-pass fully polarimetric SAR or interferometric SAR (INSAR) image data. This paper presents an approach to DEM inversion by using a single pass of polarimetric SAR data. The ψ shift is derived, by using the Mueller matrix solution, as a function of three Stokes parameters, /vs, Ihs, Us, which are measured by the SAR polarimetry. Using the Euler angles transformation, the orientation angle ψ is related to both the range and azimuth angles of the tilted surface and radar viewing geometry, as has been discussed by many authors. When only a single-pass SAR data is available, the adaptive thresholding method and image morphological thinning algorithm for linear textures are proposed to first determine the azimuth angle. Then, making use of full multi-grid algorithm, both the range and azimuth angles are utilized to solve the Poisson equation of DEM to produce the terrain topography.