A method and apparatus that coherently correlates, in either the frequency domain, or the real domain, an image of a terrain with an extant holographic image of the terrain. Strong correlations indicates matches between features common between the two holograms, or a hologram and an image, and location of the strong correlations indicates position of the features relative to the imager (e.g. a sonar aboard a ship, or a radar aboard a helicopter). Correlation information can be used for navigation.