Two stereo pairs generated with fine mode images (F1-F5) and standard mode images (S1-S7) are used to evaluate the potential of RADARSAT-SAR for extracting planimetric features on a PC-based stereo workstation. First, monoscopic and stereoscopic plotting are evaluated. It is prerequisite to acquire GCPs in stereoscopy since monoscopic collection mode degrades the relative and absolute orientations of the stereo model with a ratio of two to four depending of the stereo geometry. It is more important for smaller intersection angle stereo pairs with shallow viewing angle, such as F1-F5. The stereo extracted roads are then compared with the roads of the digital topographic maps. Statistical results over a large sample (more than 900 km) show accuracy of about one and two to three radar resolution cells (about 8 m for fine mode and 25 m for standard mode) with 68% and 90% confidence levels, respectively. These road positioning accuracy results are quite encouraging since they correspond to the 1 : 50,000 map standards. To further increase this accuracy fine modes images with an oversampled pixel spacing should be preferred, such as the Path Image Plusformat. A comparison with the ortho-rectification process shows that the stereoscopic method to extract planimetric features is four times more accurate since the positioning of features is independent of elevation errors from the stereo compilation or an a-priori existing DEM.