Updation after ENVI 5.

0 release

Updation at ENVI 5.1 release

Featured Updates

The new Seamless Mosaic workflow combines multiple georeferenced scenes into one image. It
provides several features to create a quality mosaic such as seamline creation and editing, edge
feathering, and color correction.

See the mosaic tutorials in the ENVI Help for simple and advanced workflows. ENVI programmers can
automate these functions with the ENVIMosaicRaster object.

The new Region of Interest (ROI) Tool lets you define and manage ROIs as follows:

• Draw geometry. This includes drawing a polygon, rectangle, ellipse, polyline; selecting a discrete
point; and, if desired, combining geometry into a multi-part ROI.
• Select one or more pixels.
• Grow ROIs from neighboring pixels.
• Create ROIs from band thresholds.
• Open and convert an .roi to a georeferenced (.xml) ROI.
• ENVI programmers can automate many ROI functions.
• ROIs are no longer tied to an image of a certain size but can be transferred from image to image.
• The new Spectral Profile and Spectral Library Viewer provide improved interactive analysis and
plot functions. New Plot Preferences set the default look for these windows.
• New Horizontal (X) and Vertical (Y) Profiles plot pixels that fall along the horizontal or vertical
cursor line, respectively. A new Arbitrary Profile Profile tool is also available, to plot pixels that
lie beneath a transect. New Plot Preferences set the default look for these windows.

Updated spectral libraries are included with the ENVI installation. These include over 6,500 new
spectra from the following sources: ASTER Spectral Library Version 2, U.S. Geological Survey Digital
Spectral Library 06, Johns Hopkins University, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The new ENVIRPCOrthorectificationTask programming routine performs rational polynomial coefficient

(RPC) orthorectification in batch mode.

ENVI can open generic HDF5 files. Use the Select HDF5 Datasets dialog to build raster files from a
combination of different 2D and 3D components. Also use this dialog to create an ENVI Meta file from
the HDF5 datasets and to save and restore HDF5 templates.

ENVI supports interoperability with ArcGIS® 10.2 software, with the following exceptions: No read/write
support for version 10.2 Enterprise/SDE geodatabases and no support for the Print Layout functionality.
Data Types

ENVI reads and displays imagery from the following data types:

• Active Fires product from NPP VIIRS

• ECRG
• EDR derived products from NPP VIIRS
• Göktürk-2
• KOMPSAT-3
• NigeriaSat-1 and -2
• PDS
• RapidEye Level-3B Area-based Ortho
• RASAT
• ResourceSat-2
• SICD (NITF format)
• SSOT (FASat-Charlie)
• Use the File > Open menu to open BMP, DTED, and GIF files.

Use the File > Open World Data menu to open the following sample data files provided with the
ENVI installation:

• Shapefiles of world airports, coastlines, countries, geographic lines, lakes, minor islands,
populated places, ports, rivers, roads, and states/provinces. Data courtesy of Natural Earth. Free
vector and raster map data are available at naturalearthdata.com.
• GMTED2010: Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010, 30-arc-second mean
resolution, JPEG2000 format.
• Shaded relief map
• Landsat 8 data support has been updated as follows:

• ENVI reads thermal infrared (K1 and K2) coefficients from the associated _MTL.txt metadata
files.
• Quality and Cirrus cloud bands are listed as separate bands in the Data Manager and Layer
Manager.
• Reflectance gains and offsets are automatically corrected for solar elevation.
• FLAASH® works with Landsat 8 data.
• Use the Open Remote Dataset dialog and the ENVI::OpenRaster method to open raster catalog
items from Esri® Image Services.

JPIP and IAS streaming are supported on Windows 64-bit platforms.

Image Processing

The Image Registration workflow has an option to define a custom output pixel size.

Use the Reproject GLT with Bowtie Correction tool to georeference MODIS imagery and to correct for
bowtie visual artifacts.

The Toolbox no longer includes the ENVI Classic Georeferenced Mosaicking tool; you are encouraged to
use the new Seamless Mosaic tool.

The speed of the RPC Orthorectification workflow has increased by a factor of 25.

The RPC Orthorectification workflow and Image Registration workflow both use the GMTED2010 digital
elevation model (DEM) by default, unless you specify a different DEM.

The RPC Orthorectification workflow has an option to specify a Grid Spacing value. This represents the
grid spacing in output pixels, for which ENVI finds the corresponding pixels in the input images through
an RPC-based transform.

A new tutorial in the ENVI Help demonstrates how to use FLAASH® to correct AVIRIS hyperspectral data
for atmospheric effects.
A new tutorial in the ENVI Help shows how to use the Spectral Profile and Spectral Library Viewer to
analyze AVIRIS hyperspectral data.

The THOR hyperspectral material identification tool includes an ACE algorithm for spectral comparison.
It provides a probability score for interpreting the results of material identification based on Bayesian
statistics calculations.

Access to Esri® Image Services is faster due to a new caching mechanism; it also supports Mosaic
Method by attribute.

The NITF BANDSB and GEOLOB tagged record extensions (TREs) have improved support.

The Department of Defense (DoD) plug-in from Exelis includes a new Report Generator tool. The
Mensuration Services Program (MSP) Interface has been updated to support version 1.2. DoD customers
can download the plug-in from Intellipedia.
User Interface

The Spectral Library Viewer and Select Coordinate System dialogs contain a Search field, making it easier
to find a given spectral signature or coordinate system, respectively.

Raster and vector layers are displayed accurately, regardless of mixed coordinate systems and/or
datums in the same view. High-resolution local datasets and low-resolution global datasets also display
accurately together in the same view.

Use the Open Remote Dataset dialog or the ENVI::OpenRaster API method to open file, personal, and
enterprise geodatabases.

The Vector Properties dialog offers a simpler workflow for changing display properties of vector
attributes and unique attribute values. Access the Vector Properties dialog by double-clicking a vector
layer name in the Layer Manager.

Vector polygons show an accurate fill, regardless of the viewing scale. The default outline color for
vector polygons is black when displaying vectors using a color palette.

ENVI includes a default set of keyboard shortcuts for accessing common functions. You can also define
and save your own shortcuts for menu bar options, toolbar functions, toolbox items, and opening
frequently used data files.

Text annotations support Ctrl-V paste and Ctrl-C copy with the operating system clipboard. Text
annotations no longer resize after they are completed, and they now retain their display size upon
zooming in or out.

Rename layers by right-clicking in the Layer Manager and selecting Rename Item. Enter the new name in
the Rename Item dialog and press the Enter key to accept it or press the Esc key to cancel. (Linux and
Macintosh users should click the green check icon to accept the new name or click the red X icon to
cancel.)

The ENVI Help conforms to the HTML5 web specification and displays in your system's default web
browser.

Use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in or out of the display when the Zoom button is active. Hold down
the Shift key while scrolling for a faster zoom. Hold down the Ctrl key while scrolling for a slower zoom.

The following fields are new options for customizing the Status Bar:

• NITF Security Banner: The highest security level when multiple NITF layers are displayed
• Raster Data Values: The pixel values for the top-most raster layer in the Layer Manager
• Pixel Coordinates: The x,y pixel coordinates
• Save and restore the layers of an ENVI session through the user interface, or by using the
ENVI::SaveSession and ENVI::RestoreSession API methods.

A new File Selection dialog offers more options for selecting data from disk or remote sources; it
also provides an easier way to create spectral subsets from multispectral data.
 ENVI includes the following new preferences:

• Restore Messages: Some ENVI dialogs have a "Do not ask me again" option in cases where you
repeatedly select the same button and do not want to be prompted each time. If you select this
option for one or more dialogs but later decide that you need them, click in the Restore
Messages preference.
• Remember Input/Output Directories: If this preference is set to True (the default), ENVI will
remember the last directory where you selected input files and will update the Input Directory
preference accordingly. It will also remember the last directory where you saved any output files
and will update the Output Directory preference. If you set this preference to False, the Input
Directory and Output Directory preference values will be fixed.
• Data Notation in Cursor Value: Set this preference to Float (the default) to report pixel values in
floating-point decimals. Set it to Scientific to report pixel values in scientific notation.
• Data Precision in Cursor Value: The number of decimal places of precision to report floating-
point pixel values. The default value is 1. The maximum value is 10.
• Reproject Multiple Rasters with Non-Standard Map Info: If you open two or more images with
pseudo map information (or a combination of pseudo and RPC information), setting this
preference to the default value of Yes automatically reprojects the images to a Geographic
WGS-84 projection, or whatever base projection has already been established in the display.
Opening two or more images with RPC map information reprojects the images to a UTM
projection.
• Create Pyramids if None Exists: Create and use pyramid files to speed up the display of large
images. Disabling pyramid creation is only recommended for hyperspectral datasets since it may
prohibit certain application functionality and reduce image display performance.

Programming

You can write event handlers to manage keyboard, mouse, and selection change events.

The ENVI API works with the new IDL implied print feature.

The ENVIView::HitTest function method returns an array of visualizations located at a mouse event or
within a user-specified box.

The new ENVITask routine can create custom ENVI image processing tasks. For this release, the
following tasks are available for use; more will be added in future releases.

• LidarFeatureExtraction
• QUAC
• RadiometricCalibration
• ReprojectGLT
• RPCOrthorectification
The ENVICoordSys routine has new methods that convert between latitude/longitude, map, and MGRS
coordinates.

The ENVIStandardRasterSpatialRef, ENVIRPCRasterSpatialRef, and ENVIPseudoRasterSpatialRef objects

have new methods that convert between file, latitude/longitude, map, and MGRS coordinates.

The new ENVIGLTRasterSpatialRef routine supports geographic lookup table (GLT)-based spatial
references.

The ENVIGCPSet routine defines or queries a set of ground control points.

The ENVI::GetOpenData method was deprecated in favor of the new ENVIDataCollection routine, which
manages the contents of the Data Manager.

The ENVI::CreateRaster method was deprecated in favor of the ENVI::OpenRaster method, which can
create new rasters from files or URIs.

The ENVI::CreateRasterMetadata method was deprecated in favor of the ENVIRasterMetadata routine,

which now creates new metadata objects.

The ENVI::CreateRasterSpatialRef method was deprecated in favor of the ENVIPseudoRasterSpatialRef,

ENVIRPCRasterSpatialRef, and ENVIStandardRasterSpatialRef routines,
which now create spatial reference objects.

The ENVIRasterSpatialRefPseudo routine was deprecated and renamed to ENVIPseudoRasterSpatialRef.

The ENVIRasterSpatialRefRPC routine was deprecated and renamed to ENVIRPCRasterSpatialRef.

The ENVIRasterSpatialRefStandard routine was deprecated and renamed to

ENVIStandardRasterSpatialRef.

The ENVI::ExportRaster method was deprecated in favor of the new ENVIRaster::Export method.

Other minor updates to API objects and methods are noted are in the Version History table of the
relevant help topics.
Update from ENVI 5.2:
Sensors and Data Formats
ENVI reads and displays imagery from the following sensors and data formats:
• AlSat-2A
• Deimos-1
• Gaofen-1
• GRIB-1 and GRIB-2
• Multi-page TIFF
• NetCDF-4
• Proba-V S10 TOC products, including NDVI
• Proba-V S1 TOA and TOC products
• SkySat-1 Image Frames
• WorldView-3
• Ziyuan-1-02C and -3A
• ENVI plays videos files, including those from Skybox Imaging. The Full Motion Video player
displays MISB metadata if the video file contains it. Export individual frames to the
ENVI display for further analysis, or convert a video file to a time-enabled raster series. ENVI
reads the following video formats in the Full Motion Video player:
• Adobe Flash Video (.flv, .f4v)
• Adobe Shockwave Flash (.swf)
• Animated Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
• Apple Quicktime (.mov)
• Audio Video Interleaved (.avi)
• Google WebM Matroska (.webm)
• Matroska Video (.mkv)
• Motion JPEG (.mjpeg, .mjpg)
• Motion JPEG2000 (.mj2)
• MPEG-1 Part 2 (.mpeg, .mpg, .mp1, .m2v)
• MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts)
• MPEG-2 Part 2 (.mpeg, .mpg, .mp2, .mpg2, .mpeg2, .mpv,.m2v)
• MPEG-4 Part 12 / 3GPP / 3GPP2 (.3gp, .3g2)
• MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4, .mpg4, .mpeg4, .m4v, .h264)
• Skybox (SkySat) video files

Image Processing
Spatiotemporal Analysis

You can build a series of images (also called a raster series) for spatiotemporal analysis, which provides
the ability to understand and predict Earth surface processes or human activities over space and time.
ENVI automatically reads raster "acquisition time" metadata from a wide variety of sensor data sources.
Use the following tools:
• Build Raster Series: Create a series file that references the file locations of images in your collection.
You can order the raster series sequentially according to acquisition time metadata.
• Reproject Raster Series: Normalize a stack of rasters to a common spatial grid with automatic
resampling and reprojection.
• Series/Animation Manager: View and animate a spatiotemporal series with time slider and wheel
controls. Also export a raster series to common video formats.
• Write IDL scripts to perform all of these tasks; see the Programming section below.
• Learn how to build and animate a series of Landsat images in the Time Series tutorial.

Spectral Indices

Use the Spectral Indices tool to compute various indices (one at a time), including vegetation, geology,
man-made features, burned areas, and water. It includes all of the existing vegetation indices from the
Vegetation Index Calculator.

The following are new vegetation indices:

• Difference Vegetation Index
• Global Environmental Monitoring Index
• Green Atmospherically Resistant Index
• Green Difference Vegetation Index
• Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
• Green Ratio Vegetation Index
• Green Vegetation Index
• Infrared Percentage Vegetation Index
• Leaf Area Index
• Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index
• Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index - Improved
• Modified Non-Linear Index
• Modified Simple Ratio
• Modified Triangular Vegetation Index
• Modified Triangular Vegetation Index - Improved
• Non-Linear Index
• Normalized Difference Water Index
• Normalized Multi-band Drought Index
• Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index
• Red Green Ratio Index
• Renormalized Difference Vegetation Index
• Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index
• Simple Ratio
• Transformed Chlorophyll Absorption Reflectance Index
• Transformed Difference Vegetation Index
• Triangular Vegetation Index
• Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index
• WorldView Improved Vegetative Index (WV-VI)
• The following are new indices for other features:
• Burn Area Index
• Clay Minerals Ratio
• Ferrous Minerals Ratio
• Iron Oxide Ratio
• Normalized Burn Ratio
• Normalized Burn Ratio Thermal 1
• Normalized Difference Built-Up Index
• Normalized Difference Snow Index
• WorldView Built-Up Index
 • WorldView New Iron Index
• WorldView Non-Homogenous Feature Difference
• WorldView Soil Index

Use the ENVIQuerySpectralIndices API routine to determine which indices can be computed for a given
image.
Write IDL scripts to compute spectral indices; see the Programming section below.

An EO-1 Hyperion Vegetation Indices tutorial shows how to pre-process Hyperion data and use
vegetation indices to examine areas of unhealthy vegetation in a forest.

A Burn Indices tutorial shows how to create and compare spectral indices of burned areas from Landsat-
8 imagery.

Other New Image Processing Features

The NNDiffuse Pan Sharpening tool uses the nearest neighbor diffusion (NNDiffuse) pan sharpening
algorithm to create a pan-sharpened raster from a low-resolution multispectral raster and a high-
resolution panchromatic raster.

A hyperspectral analysis tutorial explains how to use Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) classification and
Spectral Feature Fitting (SFF) to compare image spectra to reference spectra.

The Scatter Plot tool has been updated for the new ENVI interface. Select bands from different rasters,
create density slices, import/exportROIs, create a spectral profile, calculate mean spectra and class
statistics, export plots to common formats, etc. The "dancing layers" functionality highlights pixels that
correspond to the cursor location in the Image window.

The Raster Color Slice tool performance has improved; the histogram plots have tick marks and labels,
the ability to zoom in/out, and a cursor crosshair that reports pixel values.

The Feature Counting tool has been redesigned:

• Features are listed in a table view that provides colored text and the ability to sort features.
• Symbols, labels, and counts can be turned on and off in the display.
• New symbols have been added.
• Geolocation parameters are automatically determined for features derived from a georeferenced
image.
• Features contain an optional Description field for capturing additional details.
• A Grid option allows you to overlay grids on the top-most layer listed in the Layer Manager.
• Save features to an ENVI Feature Counting file (.efc) and restore this type of file in a future
ENVI session. You can also save features to shapefiles and geodatabase files.
Restoring ENVI Classic ROI files (.roi) maintains their original geometry without converting polygons to
pixels.
The n-D Visualizer Export All function exports ROIs back to the ROI Tool.
Esri® Integration

The Layer Manager and Data Manager have right-click Refresh options to reload saved modifications to
an Esri Layer file in a concurrent session of ArcMap™ software.

Create a new File Geodatabase in ENVI and write directly to it.

ENVI reads and writes to ArcGIS® 10.2 Enterprise SDE Geodatabases via .sde connection files.

ENVI's 32-bit application shortcuts for use with ArcGIS for Desktop software are located under the ENVI
5.2 > ENVI for ArcGIS® folder in the Windows Start menu.

The Remote Connection Manager has been enhanced as follows:

• ENVI lists the same Enterprise SDE Geodatabase connections as ArcCatalog™ software's "Database
Connections."
• ENVI displays the same user interface dialogs as ArcGIS for Desktop software, for establishing
Enterprise SDE Geodatabase connections.
• For ArcGIS for Server connections, ENVI only lists the supported Image Services data assets on the
server.
A Mouse Wheel Zoom Direction preference controls the direction of the mouse wheel, so you can match
the direction that ArcMap software uses.

Send datasets to ArcMap software using the DataManager, Layer Manager, and the File > Chip View to
ArcMap menu option.

Save data to a new geodatabase that is compatible with the currently installed version of ArcGIS®
software.

User Interface
Export the contents of a display view to a Geospatial PDF file. Chip the view at display resolution, or
export all raster dataset layers in the view at full resolution.

Export the contents of a display view to Google Earth.

Animate through bands of an image by selecting Display > Band Animation. Or, right-click on an image
layer in the Layer Manager and select Band Animation.

A Preview option is available for NNDiffuse Pan Sharpening, Classification Aggregation, and Spectral
Indices that allows you to dynamically preview processing results for the area displayed in the Image
window before processing the full image.

The Layer Manager and the Toolbox panels can be widened by clicking and dragging on the side of the
panel.

The snail trail in the Overview window can be saved to a file.

Create placemarks of geographic locations to quickly find different places in the Image window.
The vector and annotation buttons have been merged into two drop-down lists on the toolbar.
The Preferences dialog has a new search field. Preferences are stored in JSON format, and both 64-bit
and 32-bit application modes share the same preferences.

The Undo and Redo buttons have been removed from the toolbar; these functions are still available
under the Edit menu and by using Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y keyboard shortcuts.

The Select HDF5 Datasets dialog was renamed to the Dataset Browser; use this dialog to build raster files
from NetCDF-4 and HDF5 datasets.

The Favorites section of the Toolbox has more options for managing favorite tools.
You can select a quick stretch type while defining a spatial subset.

You can right-click on an image in the Layer Manager and select Quick Stats to view image statistics.
Highlight a vector record in the Attribute Viewer table, then click Go To in the menu bar to center the
image window over its location and to highlight the selected vector.

Use the File > Save As menu option to save images to ASCII, ArcView Raster, CADRG, CIB, ER Mapper,
ERDAS IMAGINE, JPEG2000, and PCI formats. These save options were previously available through the
Toolbox.

Programming

A new ENVI API Programming Guide in the ENVI Help explains how to write IDL scripts to
extend ENVI functionality.

Use these new routines to write scripts that perform image-processing tasks. You can also publish these
tasks to client applications using ENVI Services Engine.
Task Description

ENVIAutoChangeThresholdClassificationTask Perform image change detection using automatic

thresholding.

ENVIBuildBandStackTask Combine bands from different images

into a single image. Use a combination of this routine and
ENVIRegridRasterTask to create a layer stack.

ENVIBuildRasterSeriesTask Build a raster series file for spatiotemporal analysis.

ENVIBuildTimeSeriesTask Build a raster series file, ordered by acquisition time, for

spatiotemporal analysis.

ENVIChangeThresholdClassificationTask Perform image change detection using manual

thresholding.

ENVIClassificationAggregationTask Clean up classification results using an aggregation

operation.
ENVIClassificationSmoothingTask Clean up classification results using a smoothing
operation.

ENVIClassificationToShapefileTask Export one or more classes to a single shapefile.

ENVIColorSliceClassificationTask Create a classification raster by thresholding select data

ranges and colors.

ENVIDarkSubtractionCorrectionTask Perform dark subtraction atmospheric correction.

ENVIDimensionsResampleRasterTask Resample an image to different spatial dimensions.

ENVIForwardICATransformTask Perform a forward independent component analysis (ICA)

transform.

ENVIForwardMNFTransformTask Perform a forward minimum noise fraction (MNF)

transform.

ENVIForwardPCATransformTask Perform a forward principal components analysis (PCA)

transform.

ENVIFXSegmentationTask Perform a Feature Extraction segment-only workflow.

ENVIGramSchmidtPanSharpeningTask Perform Gram-Schmidt pan sharpening.

ENVIImageBandDifferenceTask Perform a difference analysis on a specific band in two

images.

ENVIImageIntersectionTask Compute the overlapping area of two images.

ENVIImageThresholdToROITask Define one or more ROIs using at least one threshold.

ENVIISODATAClassificationTask Perform unsupervised classification using the ISODATA

method.

ENVIMahalanobisDistanceClassificationTask Perform Mahalanobis Distance supervised classification.

ENVIMappingResampleRasterTask Resample an image to different dimensions using column

and row mapping.

ENVIMaximumLikelihoodClassificationTask Perform Maximum Likelihood supervised classification.

ENVIMinimumDistanceClassificationTask Perform Minimum Distance supervised classification.

ENVINNDiffusePanSharpeningTask Perform NNDiffuse pan sharpening.

ENVIPCPanSharpeningTask Perform PC pan sharpening.

ENVIPercentThresholdClassificationTask Segment an image into anomalous and non-anomalous

regions.
ENVIPixelScaleResampleRasterTask Resample an image to different dimensions by multiplying
the pixel size by a scale factor.

ENVIQuerySpectralIndicesTask Determine which spectral indices are available for a given

image.

ENVIRadiometricNormalizationTask Create an image from two rasters that minimizes their

differences caused by inconsistent image acquisition
conditions.

ENVIRasterStatisticsTask Calculate basic image statistics.

ENVIRasterViewshedTask Calculate a viewshed from a DEM.

ENVIRegridRasterSeriesByIndexTask Reproject a raster series to a spatial grid, using the grid

parameters of a selected raster index.

ENVIRegridRasterSeriesByIntersectionTask Reproject a raster series to a spatial grid, using the

geometric intersection of all of the rasters.

ENVIRegridRasterSeriesByUnionTask Reproject a raster series to a spatial grid, using the

geometric union of all of the rasters.

ENVIRegridRasterTask Reproject an image to a spatial grid.

ENVIROIToClassificationTask Create a classification imagefrom ROIs.

ENVIRXAnomalyDetectionTask Perform Reed-Xiaoli (RX)anomaly detection.

ENVISpectralAngleMapperClassificationTask Perform Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) supervised

classification.

ENVISpectralIndexTask Create a spectral index image from one pre-defined index.

ENVISpectralIndicesTask Create a multi-band image, where each band is a different

spectral index.

ENVIThematicChangeTask Input two classification images of the same scene taken at

different times and identify differences between them.

ENVITrainingClassificationStatisticsTask Compute statistics from classification training regions.

ENVIVectorAttributeToROIsTask Create ROIs from geometry records in a vector.

ENVIVectorRecordsToROITask Create one ROI from all geometry records in a vector.

ENVIVegetationSuppressionTask Remove the vegetation spectral signature from

multispectral and hyperspectral imagery.

ENVIVideoToRasterSeriesTask Export frames from a video file to a raster series.

Use the ENVIGridDefinition routine to create a spatial grid definition, which is used to georeference
rasters and vectors to a common coordinate system. ENVIGridDefinition is only a definition, not a spatial
reference or raster. It can be used as an input to ENVISpatialGridRaster or to define the grid parameters
for an empty raster.

Use the ENVIMetaspectralRaster routine to create an image that consists of bands from different
images. Or, use this routine in combination with ENVISpatialGridRaster to create a georeferenced layer
stack.

Use the ENVINNDiffusePanSharpeningRaster routine to create nearest neighbor diffusion (NNDiffuse)

pan sharpened rasters from a low-resolution raster and a high-resolution panchromatic raster.

Use the ENVIPreferences and ENVIPreferenceItem routines to manage preference settings.

Use the ENVIRasterSeries routine to build a series of images for spatiotemporal analysis. Then use the
ENVIRasterSeriesLayer routine to display the raster series.

Use the ENVIRasterStatistics routine to get statistics for all bands of an image.

Use the ENVIResampleRaster routine to resample images.

Use the ENVISpatialGridRaster routine to project an image to a standard spatial reference.

Use the ENVISpectralIndexRaster routine to create new rasters based on common spectral indices.

The ENVIView routine has a new ChipToVideo method that saves an animation from a spatiotemporal
analysis to a variety of video file formats.

The ENVIRaster::Subset method has been deprecated. UseENVISubsetRaster for spatial and spectral
subsetting.
Updates with ENVI 5.3 release
Sensors and Data Formats

ENVI reads and displays imagery from the following sensors and data formats:
• Deimos-2
• DubaiSat-2
• Pleiades-HR and SPOT mosaic tiles
• GeoPackage vectors
• Google-formatted SkySat-2
• Sentinel-2

Image Processing
Point Clouds
Use the Generate Point Clouds by Dense Image Matching tool to create point clouds in LAS format from
two or more satellite images taken from different view points. The following sensors are supported:
• DPPDB with a generic RPC sensor model
• GeoEye-1 in DigitalGlobe format (.til) and PVL format
• IKONOS
• Pleiades-1A
• QuickBird
• SPOT-6
• WorldView-1 through -3
This tool runs on Windows 64-bit platforms and requires a separate license for the ENVI
Photogrammetry Module (formerly the ENVI Orthorectification Module), which also includes access
to Rigorous Orthorectification.
QUAC

The QUick Atmospheric Correction (QUAC)® algorithm was updated to the latest baseline source code
from Spectral Sciences, Inc. The following reference summarizes the updated algorithm:
Bernstein, L.S., X. Jin, B. Grebor, and S. Adler-Golden. "Quick Atmospheric Correction Code: Algorithm
Description and Recent Upgrades." Optical Engineering 51, No. 11 (2012): 111719-1 to 111719-11.
It contains the following enhancements to improve the accuracy of atmospheric correction:
• Applies mud filtering to exclude highly structured materials.
• Selects endmembers based on a small subset of available bands for most sensors. When a
sensor spans both the visible and NIR-SWIR spectral regions, the algorithm excludes bands in the
visible region.
• Constrains the gain curve to be constant for wavelengths below 650 nm.
• Suppresses the effects of dense vegetation.
• Removes cloud endmembers for hyperspectral sensors with 940 to 1020 nm water absorption
bands.
• QUAC also works with images where pixels are masked out or set to NoData, NaN, or Infinity.
• GMTED2010
A higher-resolution version of the GMTED2010 (7.5 arc seconds) is available for download from the
Exelis VIS website. We recommend using this version for RPC Orthorectification and automatic tie point
generation in Image Registration because it will significantly improve the accuracy of the results. See the
"GMTED2010 Overview" topic in ENVI Help for details.

New Spectral Indices

The Normalized Difference Mud Index (NDMI) highlights muddy or shallow-water pixels. This index was
originally designed as a filter to exclude those pixels and to improve the accuracy of QUick Atmospheric
Correction (QUAC)®.

The Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) enhances open water features while
suppressing noise from built-up land, vegetation, and soil. Xu (2006) reported that the MNDWI
produced better results than the Normalized Difference Water Index originally developed by McFeeters
(1996) in enhancing and extracting water from a background that is dominated by built-up land areas.

The Spectral Indices tool now lists only the spectral indices that are available to compute from an input
raster, based on its wavelength metadata. It previously listed all spectral indices, then issued an error
message if you selected any that could not be computed for the input raster.

User Interface

Numerous performance enhancements have been included in this release, improving the speed and
efficiency of ENVI when working with multiple datasets and raster series animation.

ENVI imagery can now be saved to Geospatial PDF files. Select File > Chip View To > Geospatial PDF to
capture all georeferenced data layers displayed in the current view, or use File > Export View To >
Geospatial PDF to select and export entire georeferenced raster layers.

Use the Regrid Raster Series tool (under the Spatiotemporal Analysis folder in the Toolbox) to define a
custom grid and to regrid a raster series to it. A custom grid definition is a combination of a coordinate
system, spatial extent, pixel size, number of rows and columns, and/or tie-point pixel and map
coordinates.

Right-click on the Classes folder of an ENVI classification image and select Edit Class Names and
Colors to edit the default names and colors of individual classes.

The Clump Classes and Sieve Classes dialogs allow you to preview processing results.

The Edit ENVI Header dialog has been replaced by the Set Raster Metadata dialog. Use this to edit the
values of ENVI header fields and to save the results to an ENVI header file. In the Toolbox, select Raster
Management > Edit ENVI Header to access the Set Raster Metadata tool.

The Jagwire product, available from Exelis VIS, provides a server that streams imagery and video for
display and analysis. Use the redesigned and simplified Remote Connection Manager to connect to
Jagwire servers, to perform spatial and time queries on their contents, and to open raster data that
represents properties of geographic locations.
The File Selection dialog now includes buttons for subsetting by raster, by vector, by region of interest
(ROI), or by map coordinates. Click the Spatial Subset button in the File Selection dialog to access these
options.

The File > Save As menu option now includes options for creating a masked raster file. A mask can be
defined from another raster, a vector, or one or more ROIs. Click the Mask button in the File Selection
dialog to access these options.

The ENVI LiDAR application has been merged into ENVI. To open the ENVI LiDAR window select LiDAR >
Launch ENVI LiDAR from the Toolbox, or select Display > ENVI LiDAR from the ENVI menu bar.

Analyze data over time with a spatiotemporal Series Profile. From the main menu, select Display >
Profiles > Series to launch the plot window.

ENVI profiles now provide adjustable smoothing to plotted data. Select Options > Curve Smoothingto
display the slider control.

Programming

ENVIQUACTask and ENVI_QUAC_DOIT were updated to the latest algorithm from Spectral Sciences, Inc.,
documented in the following reference:
Bernstein, L.S., X. Jin, B. Grebor, and S. Adler-Golden. "Quick Atmospheric Correction Code: Algorithm
Description and Recent Upgrades." Optical Engineering 51, No. 11 (2012): 111719-1 to 111719-11.
Tasks
The following table lists new ENVITasks. You can also publish these tasks to client applications using
ENVI Services Engine.
Task Description

ENVIAdditiveLeeAdaptiveFilter Apply a Lee adaptive filter to smooth noisy

data that has an additive component.

ENVIAdditiveMultiplicativeLeeAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a Lee adaptive filter to smooth noisy

data that has an additive and multiplicative
component.

ENVIBinaryGTThresholdRasterTask Create a raster where values above a

specified threshold are set to 1 and all other
values are set to 0.

ENVIBinaryLTThresholdRasterTask Create a raster where values below a

specified threshold are set to 1 and all other
values are set to 0.
ENVIBitErrorAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a bit error adaptive filter to a raster.

ENVIBuildMosaicRasterTask Build a mosaic raster based on a set of input

rasters.

ENVICalculateQUACGainOffsetTask Calculate the gain and offset for QUAC on

multispectral or hyperspectral imagery.

ENVIDataValuesMaskRasterTask Export a data values mask raster to an ENVI-

format file.

ENVIDirectionalFilterTask Apply a directional filter to a raster.

ENVIDirectionalKernelTask Define a directional kernel for use with

convolution filtering.

ENVIEnhancedFrostAdaptiveFilterTask Apply an enhanced Frost filter to a raster, to

reduce speckling while preserving edges.

ENVIEnhancedLeeAdaptiveFilterTask Apply an enhanced Lee filter to a raster, to

reduce speckling while preserving texture
information.

ENVIExportColorSlicesTask Export raster color slices to a density slice

range (DSR) file.

ENVIFrostAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a Frost filter to a raster, to reduce

speckling while preserving edges.

ENVIGammaAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a gamma filter to a raster, to reduce

speckling while preserving edges.

ENVIGaussianHighPassFilterTask Apply a Gaussian high pass filter to a raster.

ENVIGaussianHighPassKernelTask Define a Gaussian high pass filter for use

with convolution filtering.

ENVIGaussianLowPassFilterTask Apply a Gaussian low pass filter to a raster.

ENVIGaussianLowPassKernelTask Define a Gaussian low pass filter for use

with convolution filtering.
ENVIGeneratePointCloudsByDenseImageMatchingTask Generate 3D point clouds from two or more
images taken from different view points
using a dense image matching method.

ENVIGeoJSONToROITask Convert GeoJSON features to a region of

interest (ROI).

ENVIGeoPackageToShapefileTask Convert GeoPackage vector files to

Shapefile format.

ENVIGetColorSlicesTask Get data ranges and colors from a density

slice range (DSR) file.

ENVIGetSpectrumFromLibraryTask Retrieve the details of a specified material

from a spectral library.

ENVIHighClipRasterTask Create a new raster where values above a

threshold are set to the threshold.

ENVIHighPassFilterTask Apply a high pass filter to a raster.

ENVIHighPassKernelTask Define a high pass kernel for use with

convolution filtering.

ENVIKuanAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a Kuan adaptive filter to a raster.

ENVILaplacianFilterTask Apply a Laplacian filter to a raster.

ENVILaplacianKernelTask Define a Laplacian kernel for use with

convolution filtering.

ENVILocalSigmaAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a Local Sigma adaptive filter to a

raster.

ENVILowClipRasterTask Create a new raster where values below a

threshold are set to the threshold.

ENVILowPassFilterTask Apply a low pass filter to a raster.

ENVILowPassKernelTask Define a low pass kernel for use with

convolution filtering.
ENVIMaskRasterTask Export a mask raster to an ENVI-format file.

ENVIMedianFilterTask Apply a median filter to a raster.

ENVIMultiplicativeLeeAdaptiveFilterTask Apply a Lee adaptive filter to smooth noisy

data that has an multiplicative component.

ENVIROIMaskRasterTask Export an ROI mask raster to an ENVI-

format file.

ENVIQuerySpectralLibraryTask Query a spectral library, returning the

names of all spectra in the library.

ENVIQueryTaskTask View property descriptions for a selected

ENVITask.

ENVIQueryTaskCatalogTask View a list of available tasks in ENVI.

ENVIRasterConvolutionTask Apply a convolution filter to a raster.

ENVIRasterHistogramTask Compute the histogram of a raster.

ENVIRasterMetadataItemTask Retrieve the value of a given raster

metadata key.

ENVIRegridRasterSeriesTask Reproject a series of rasters to a common

spatial grid, using a custom grid definition.

ENVIReprojectRasterTask Reproject a raster from one coordinate

system to another.

ENVIResampleSpectrumTask Resample a given spectrum to a different

set of wavelengths, typically from a
hyperspectral image.

ENVIRobertsFilterTask Apply a Roberts filter to a raster.

ENVISetRasterMetadataTask Set metadata values for a raster that does

not have an associated ENVI header file
(.hdr). This task creates a new header file
and saves it to a specified location on disk.
 ENVISobelFilterTask Apply a Sobel filter to a raster.

ENVISpectralAdaptiveCoherenceEstimator Perform Adaptive Coherence Estimator

UsingSubspaceBackgroundStatisticsTask (ACE) target detection analysis, using the
mean and covariance from subspace
background statistics.

ENVISpectralSubspaceBackgroundStatisticsTask Compute background statistics by excluding

anomalous pixels.

ENVIVectorMaskRasterTask Export a vector mask raster to an ENVI-

format file.

ENVIVectorRecordsToSeparateROITask Create individual ROIs from each geometry

record in a vector.

Objects and Methods

Object or Method Description

ENVIBinaryGTThresholdRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where pixel

values above a specified threshold are set to 1 and all others
are set to 0.

ENVIBinaryLTThresholdRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where pixel

values below a specified threshold are set to 1 and all others
are set to 0.

ENVIDataValuesMaskRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster and a specified

data range, where each pixel within the data range will not be
masked.

ENVIGainOffsetWithThresholdRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster with gains and

offsets applied. Optionally constrain the resulting pixel
values to a specified range.

ENVIHighClipRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where values

above a threshold are set to the threshold.

ENVIJagwireServer Reference an ENVIJagwireServer object. You can:

 • Query a hash table of raster datasets available on the Jagwire
server
• Query a hash table of dataset metadata
• Close the Jagwire server connection in ENVI

ENVILowClipRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where values

below a threshold are set to the threshold.

ENVIQUACRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that has QUick

Atmospheric Correction (QUAC) applied.

ENVIReprojectRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that has been

reprojected to a different coordinate system.

ENVIRoi::GetExtent Return the pixel coordinates boundary of the ROI for a given
ENVIRaster.

ENVISpectralLibrary Create an ENVI spectral library object.

ENVIView::Chip Create a new ENVIRaster from the contents of a view.

ENVIView::ChipToFile Chip the contents of a view directly to a file.

ENVI LiDAR Objects, Methods, and Tasks

ObjectMethod/Task Description

ENVI::OpenPointCloud This method opens one or more point cloud files. It also
opens a single ENVI LiDAR project file.

ENVI::QueryPointCloud The QueryPointCloud function method opens a single point

cloud file.

ENVICreatePointCloudSubProjectTask This task divides an existing ENVI LiDAR project into a

number of subprojects for simultaneous processing by a
number of ENVI Services Engine (ESE) workers.

ENVIPointCloud This method is a reference to a point cloud object, to which

you can:

• Get points within a circle region

 • Get points within a polygon region
• Get spatially sorted points within a given range
• Get points within a rectangle region
• Get points within a specified tile
• Save the ENVIPointCloud object
• Write points to a new LAS file
• Close the ENVIPointCloud object

ENVIPointCloudFeatureExtractionTask This task performs feature extraction on point cloud

data. Building, tree, and power line feature extraction can
be performed with the purchase of the ENVI Feature
Extraction license. It also includes a validate task.

ENVIPointCloudFilter This is a reference to an ENVIPointCloud point filter object. It

is used to filter the point data that will be returned from the
point query methods of the ENVIPointCloud object.

ENVIPointCloudMetadata This is a reference to a point cloud metadata object.

ENVIPointCloudProductsInfo This object stores the fully-qualified filenames for all

products generated by
ENVIPointCloudFeatureExtractionTask.

ENVIPointCloudQuery This method is a reference to a point cloud object that has

not been built into an optimized file format (i.e., an ENVI
LiDAR .ini file). You can:

• Get spatially sorted points within a given range

• Close the ENVIPointCloudQueryobject

ENVIPointCloudSpatialRef This method creates an ENVIPointCloudSpatialRef object, to

which you can:

• Convert lat/lon coordinates to map coordinates

• Convert map coordinates to lat/lon coordinates
• Convert coordinates map-to-map

ENVIPointCloudViewer This method starts the ENVI LiDAR application and returns an
object reference to the instance of the application. You can:

• Open an ENVIPointCloud object in the viewer

 • Open a shapefile in the viewer
• Get an ENVIPointCloud object that is already open in the
viewer
• Get the view extents
• Set the location of the progress bar in the viewer
• Set the view extents
• Close the viewer

ENVISpatialSubsetPointCloud This method creates a new ENVISpatialSubsetPointCloud

object which is a spatial subset of an existing ENVIPointCloud
object.

Messaging
Use the following objects and methods to add progress notification, or messaging, to ENVI API scripts.
Object or Method Description

ENVI::GetBroadcastChannel This method returns an object reference to the system's

broadcast channel.

ENVIAbortable Use this class to communicate if an abort is requested.

ENVIAbortableTaskFromProcedure Use this base class when writing custom tasks that will have a
progress dialog with an option to abort the process. This base
class has its own set of PreExecute, DoExecute, and PostExecute
methods.

ENVIBroadcastChannel This is a reference to a broadcast channel object, to which you

can:

• Send messages using the Broadcast method

• Subscribe using the Subscribe method
• Unsubscribe using the Unsubscribe method

ENVIMessage This is an abstract class used as a superclass for other message

classes.

ENVIMessageHandler This is an abstract class used as a super class for other message
classes. ENVIBroadcastChannel calls the
 ENVIMessageHandler::OnMessage method to forward messages
to all of its subscribers.

ENVIStartMessage This function constructs an ENVIStartMessage object to send to

the ENVIBroadcastChannel. If the ENVI user interface is running,
then a progress dialog will appear.

ENVIProgressMessage This function constructs an ENVIProgressMessage object to send

to the ENVIBroadcastChannel. If the ENVI user interface is
running with a progress dialog, the dialog will update.

ENVIFinishMessage This function constructs an ENVIFinishMessage object to send to

the ENVIBroadcastChannel. If the ENVI user interface is running
with a progress dialog, the dialog will close.

See the "Custom Tasks with Abortable Progress Reports" topic in ENVI Help for instructions on creating
custom tasks with the option to display a progress report and an option to abort (cancel) the task.
Updates from ENVI 5.4 release

Installation and Licensing

ENVI licensing is now managed through a third-party solution from Flexera Software. You obtain the
license through a portal hosted by Flexera, then you can choose to activate the license on a license
server or on an individual node-locked machine. Details about ENVI licensing are documented in a
standalone topic outside of this Help.

By default, ENVI installs under a Harris directory. It was previously Exelis:

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Harris\ENVI54
• Linux: /usr/local/harris/envi54
• Macintosh: /Applications/harris/envi54

ENVI and IDL have separate installers. If IDL and ENVI are both installed on the same system, the Help
application contains the help for both products.
Supported Data Types

ENVI supports the following sensors and data types:

• ADS80
• Gaofen-2
• GOES-R
• Himawari-8
• NetCDF-3
• TripleSat
•
Use File > Open to open MODIS (HDF-EOS), ASTER (HDF-EOS), and EO-1 ALI and Hyperion (HDF4) files. In
previous versions, you had to use the File > Open As > Optical Sensors > sensor type menu option.

Dataset Browser

The Dataset Browser was redesigned to let you easily build new ENVI rasters that contain a combination
of scientific data, attributes, and latitude/longitude information from HDF and NetCDF files. Use the File
> Open As > Scientific Formats > format menu option to access the Dataset Browser. Here are some
other updates:
• The Dataset Browser user interface has new icons to simplify the process of building new rasters.
• You can map attributes from the source dataset to standard ENVI header fields.
• You can add standard ENVI header fields to the new raster with known metadata values.
• You can add VData fields from HDF4 files to the new raster. Each raster can only have one VData
field. You cannot combine VData fields with other datasets.
• You can select latitude and longitude datasets from the source file and add them to a Geographic
Information folder in the Raster Builder. When you display the raster, ENVI georeferences the raster
on-the-fly in the Image window, using the latitude and longitude information. It does not actually
geocorrect the dataset.
• You can create a report of the data fields and metadata that comprise a raster. The available
formats are text, XML, or JSON. With HDF4 files, JSON is the only available option.
• ENVI programmers can manually create XML templates for reading data in HDF4 and NetCDF-3
datasets. Previously, templates only worked with HDF5 and NetCDF-4 datasets. Templates are
helpful in building the same raster and metadata structure from several scientific data formats.
Using a template prevents you from having to use the Dataset Browser to re-define the raster and
metadata for every file. See the "Open Scientific Data Formats" topic in ENVI Help for more
information.

Image Processing

The Generate Point Clouds and DSM by Dense Image Matching tool will now generate digital surface
models (DSMs) in TIFF format, in addition to point clouds. This tool is part of the ENVI Photogrammetry
Module and requires a separate license and installation of that module. This tool runs on Windows 64-
bit platforms only.

Use the RPC Orthorectification Using DSM from Dense Image Matching tool to perform RPC
orthorectification using a digital surface model (DSM). The DSM is generated from two or more images
taken from different view points. It is used as the terrain source to orthorectify the first raster in the
input rasters. This tool is part of the ENVI Photogrammetry Module and requires a separate license and
installation of that module. This tool runs on Windows 64-bit platforms only.

The RPC Orthorectification Using Reference Image tool was updated to include a new
parameter: Output Pixel Size in the X and Y direction, in meters. The default value is derived from the
pixel size of the input image.

Use the Edit Classification Image tool to reassign classes in classification images. You can also use this
tool with the results of viewshed analysis or thematic change detection.

The Color Point Cloud tool uses red/green/blue (RGB) data from a raster to colorize a LAS file of the
same location. Each point of the point cloud receives the RGB value of the raster pixel that has the same
location.

The Image Registration workflow has been updated as follows:

• The base image and warp image are displayed using side-by-side views instead of separate
windows.
• New buttons and controls are provided for reviewing and managing tie points.
• A new Predict Warp Location option is available. When you click on a feature point in the base
image and this option is enabled, ENVI will use an image-matching technique to try to find the
corresponding location in the warp image. This prevents you from having to manually select tie
points in both images.
• Use the Dice Raster tools to separate a raster into tiles based on tile count, distance, pixel
count, or a vector shapefile. The Dice Raster tools are in the ENVI Toolbox under Raster
Management > Raster Dicer.
The Calculate Cloud Mask Using Fmask tool was redesigned and simplified from the previous version.
You no longer have to calibrate the imagery or create a layer stack before adding the imagery to the
tool. It automatically calibrates the imagery and determines the appropriate multispectral, thermal, and
cirrus bands to use in creating a cloud mask. It currently supports the following sensors:
• Landsat 4-5 TM
• Landsat 7 ETM+
• Landsat 8
• Sentinel-2 Level-1C
• NPP VIIRS Moderate Resolution (750 m) reflectance and brightness temperature SDR data
downloaded from NOAA CLASS (HDF5 format)

The Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) was updated to use any green band ranging from 0.5 to
0.6 µm. The NDSI is based on the following references:
Hall, D., G. Riggs, and V. Salomonson. "Development of Methods for Mapping Global Snow Cover Using
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Data." Remote Sensing of Environment 54, No. 2
(1995): 127-140.
Salomonson, V., and I. Appel. "Estimating Fractional Snow Cover from MODIS Using the Normalized
Difference Snow Index." Remote Sensing of Environment 89 (2004): 351-360.

Classification

The new ENVI classification framework provides a powerful and flexible way to classify data. You can
create and train a classifier on one dataset and apply it to a similar dataset. Traditionally, classifiers are
tied to one data source. With the new framework, you can train and evaluate the performance of a
classifier once and apply it anywhere, including desktop or enterprise environments. Currently, the
classification framework uses the ENVI application programming interface (API).
Here are some of the new features included in the classification framework:
• Softmax Regression classifier: Softmax is a generalization of logistic regression that is used for
multi-class classification where classes are mutually exclusive. An example is classifying a
satellite image into four different classes such as cloud, water, asphalt, and vegetation.
• Iterative and Gradient Descent trainers: These algorithms minimize classification error by
iteratively reducing a loss function until it converges on a minimum value.
• Evaluate a classifier: New API routines are available to compute a confusion matrix and
accuracy metrics. Once you train and evaluate a classifier, you can save the classifier to an IDL
save file and use it to classify other similar datasets.
• New tutorials: "Classification Tutorial 1: Create an Attribute Image" describes how to create an
image that consists of different attributes, which typically improves classification results.
"Classification Tutorial 2: Collect Training Data" shows how to interactively define regions of
interest (ROIs) that represent known land-cover types. The ROIs serve as ground truth data for
supervised classification.
• See the "ENVI Classification" topic in ENVI Help for details. Also see the "New Classification
Routines" section below.
 •

• Stretch Types and Histograms

• Several updates were made to the ENVI stretch and histogram manipulation tools:
• When you click the new Stretch on View Extent with auto update button, the selected stretch
type automatically updates as you pan around the image.
• The Custom Stretch dialog was renamed to Histogram Stretch. It allows better control with
red/green/blue histograms (for color images) or with greyscale histograms. You can adjust the
minimum and maximum values of the histograms as well as the number of bins.
• The Contrast control works in conjunction with Linear, Equalization, Gaussian, Square Root, and
Logarithmic stretch types.
• In previous versions, the stretch type changed to Custom when you adjusted
the Contrast setting. The Custom option has since been removed from the Stretch Types drop-
down list.
• The Brightness and Contrast controls are enabled when the Custom Histogram Stretch dialog is
displayed. As you adjust the Contrast setting, both the minimum and maximum histogram
points adjust accordingly in the Custom Histogram Stretch dialog (for red, green, and blue).
• Bipolar Stretch is a new option for the Stretch Types drop-down list.

Viewshed Analysis

The Viewshed Analysis workflow and the corresponding API routine (ENVIViewshedRasterTask) were
updated with new observer view constraints such as horizontal and vertical field of view, azimuth, and
pitch. When combined with range and observer height (which were already in ENVI), these view
constraints can more accurately model line-of-sight analyses.

ENVI now uses the Izraelevitz (2003) algorithm for viewshed analysis, which is an extension to the
original Xdraw algorithm developed by Franklin et al. (1994). The Izraelevitz algorithm performs well in
densely sampled terrain elevation models, and it is significantly faster than the radial interpolation
method used in previous versions of ENVI.
References:
Franklin, W. R., C. K. Ray, and S. Mehta. Geometric Algorithms for Siting of Air Defense Missile Batteries,
Technical Report DAAL03-86-D-0001 (1994), Battelle, Columbus Division, Columbus, OH, 129 p.
Izraelevitz, D. "A Fast Algorithm for Approximate Viewshed Computation." Photogrammetric Engineering
& Remote Sensing 69, No. 7 (2003): 767-774.
The Viewshed Analysis tutorial uses new data files to show different ways to determine visibility from
multiple view sources.
Display Tools

You can affix certain annotation items to the display so that they remain stationary while you zoom,
pan, and rotate. These are called on-the-glass annotations, and they include text, symbols, classification
legends, color bars, and scale bars.
The Create Pyramid if None Exists preference was changed to a drop-down list with more options. It
offers better flexibility in choosing whether or not to create pyramid files with datasets that have a large
number of bands (such as hyperspectral imagery).
Use the Icon Size preference to adjust the size of icons in the ENVI application. If it is set
to Automatic (default), ENVI checks your system's default font size and resizes icons accordingly. Other
choices are as follows:
• Original - 100%: Icons display at their original size.
• Medium - 140%: Icons display at 140% of their original size.
• You can add four new annotation types to the Image window view. These options are available
from the Annotations drop-down menu in the toolbar:
• Legends for classification images
• Scale bars for georeferenced images
• Color bars for single-band greyscale images with color tables applied
• Grid lines for georeferenced images
The Description and/or the Coordinates string from the Feature Counting Tool table now display in the
view.

If any layer in a view has a standard, RPC, or pseudo spatial reference, you can change the base
projection of the view to any supported map projection. Right-click on the View layer in the Layer
Manager and select Change Base Projection, then use the Select Coordinate System dialog to choose a
projection.

If a view contains a standard, RPC, or pseudo projection, you can overlay grid lines in that view by
clicking the Grid Lines button in the ENVI toolbar.

JPG2000 and NITF C8/M8 compressed rasters display and process faster.

Programming

A new "Custom Tasks" tutorial shows how to write a custom task that creates vegetation indices from
Sentinel-2A Level-1C imagery. New example files are provided with the tutorial in
the /examples/tasks/sentinelexample folder of the ENVI installation path.

Use the envitaskengine executable to run ENVITasks in command-line environments. You can now plug
ENVI analytics into applications in different programming languages or environments that share
information. The environments must be able to handle standard streams (stdin, stdout, and stderr).
Dehydrate and Hydrate methods were added to all virtual rasters and data type objects.
If you create a custom task that displays a dialog for selecting parameters for an ENVITask or custom
API script, you can include a style sheet to define the individual user interface (UI) elements. Examples
of UI elements include file selection boxes, color pickers, and text boxes.

The ENVIGLTRasterSpatialRef routine now acts as a constructor function, allowing you to create a new
geographic lookup table (GLT) spatial reference in the ENVI API. You can then open an ENVIRaster using
the GLT spatial reference. See the ENVIGLTRasterSpatialRef help topic for details.

New ENVITasks
Task Description

ENVICalculateCloudMaskForProductTask Calculate a cloud mask for the following sensors: Landsat 4-

5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8, Sentinel-2, and NPP VIIRS
reflectance/thermal data. The task automatically performs
the radiometric calibration required for the Fmask
algorithm. You do not need to calibrate the imagery before
running this task.

ENVIColorPointCloudTask Color a point cloud using raster data.

ENVICreateSubrectsFromDistanceTask Create a 2D array of subrects based on a specified distance.

A subrect is a bounding box used to spatially subset a raster.

ENVICreateSubrectsFromPixelsTask Create a 2D array of subrects based on a specified number

of pixels.

ENVICreateSubrectsFromTileCountTask Create a 2D array of subrects based on a specified number

of tiles.

ENVICreateSubrectsFromVectorTask Create a 2D array of subrects based on the spatial extent of

individual vector records.

ENVIDiceRasterByDistanceTask Separate a raster into tiles based on a specified distance.

ENVIDiceRasterByPixelTask Separate a raster into tiles based on a specified number of

pixels.

ENVIDiceRasterBySubrectsTask Create an array of rasters based on subrects.

ENVIDiceRasterByTileCountTask Separate a raster into tiles based on a specified number of

tiles.
ENVIDiceRasterByVectorTask Separate a raster into tiles based on the spatial extent of
individual vector records.

ENVIExportRastersToDirectoryTask Export multiple virtual rasters to a specified directory on

disk.

ENVIExportRasterToENVITask Export a raster to ENVI file format.

ENVIFirstOrderEntropyTextureTask Compute first-order entropy texture on a raster.

ENVILabelEntropyTextureTask Compute first-order entropy texture on the label bands of a

rank-strength-texture raster.

ENVIMirrorRasterTask Flip a raster horizontally, vertically, or both.

ENVIQueryAllTasksTask Return a hash where each key is the task name and each
task name key contains a hash of the task's properties.

ENVIRankStrengthTextureTask Compute label rank and strength texture metrics on a

raster.

ENVIRGBToHSIRasterTask Transform the color space of a raster from red/green/blue

(RGB) to hue/saturation/intensity (HSI).

ENVIRPCOrthorectificationUsingDSM Perform RPC orthorectification using a digital surface model

(DSM) generated from a dense image matching method.
FromDenseImageMatchingTask

ENVITransposeRasterTask Interchange rows with columns in a raster.

New Classification ENVITasks

Task Description

ENVIApplyGainOffsetToExamplesTask This task applies a gain and offset to the examples in

an ENVIExamples object. Its purpose is to get the data
into a consistent range of values prior to classification.

ENVICalculateConfusionMatrixFromRasterTask This task returns a reference to an

ENVIConfusionMatrix object computed from a
classification raster and truth ROIs.
ENVIClassifyRasterTask This task classifies a raster using a trained classifier.

ENVICreateGradientDescentTrainerTask This task creates a Gradient Descent trainer that can

train a classifier using ENVITrainClassifierTask.

ENVICreateIterativeTrainerTask This task creates an iterative trainer that can train a

classifier using ENVITrainClassifierTask.

ENVICreateSoftmaxRegressionClassifierTask This task creates a Softmax Regression classifier.

ENVICreateSVMClassifierTask This task creates a Support Vector Machine

(SVM) classifier.

ENVIEvaluateClassifierTask This task takes in truth examples, truth class values,

and a classifier. It uses the classifier and truth
examples (ignoring the truth class values) to calculate
predicted class values. Then it computes a confusion
matrix and accuracy metrics between the truth and
predicted class values.

ENVIExtractExamplesFromRasterTask This task returns a reference to an ENVIExamples

object that contains examples, class values, and other
properties from an input raster and regions of interest
(ROIs).

ENVIShuffleExamplesTask This task shuffles the examples and class values from
an ENVIExamples object to randomize the order of
the examples. Random ordering of the examples is
important if the examples are split into multiple sets
(such as training and evaluation sets).

ENVISplitExamplesTask This task splits the examples and class values from an
ENVIExamples object into two sets of examples and
class values. A common scenario is to use one set for
training a classifier and the other set for evaluation.

ENVITrainClassifierTask This task trains a classifier. It updates the original

classifier instead of creating a new output classifier.
New Objects and Methods
Object/Method Description

ENVI::RestoreSession Restore an ENVI session file.

ENVI::SaveSession Create an ENVI session file that specifies a layout configuration,

files loaded into views, and their properties.

ENVICalibrateRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that has been

calibrated to radiance, top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance, or
brightness temperatures.

ENVIFirstOrderEntropyTextureRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where first-order

entropy texture has been computed on an input raster.

ENVIGeoJSON This is a wrapper around a GeoJSON representation that is

stored as an IDL Hash. It is required input for tasks such as
ENVIGeoJSONToROITask that need a GeoJSON string.

ENVIGridLinesLayer This is a reference to an ENVIGridLinesLayer object. Also see the

ENVIView::CreateGridLinesLayer method below.

ENVILabelEntropyTextureRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster where a first-

order entropy texture has been computed on a the label bands
of a rank-strength-texture raster.

ENVILayerStackRaster Create a layer-stacked ENVIRaster from source rasters that have

been regridded to a common spatial grid. The source rasters
can be band groups within a metaspectral dataset (such as
Landsat, ASTER, or Sentinel-2), or they can come from different
raster files.

ENVIMirrorRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that is reflected

(flipped) horizontally, vertically, or both.

ENVIRankStrengthTextureRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster for which rank-

based strength and label texture metrics have been computed.

ENVIRestoreObject This function restores a persistable object from disk, including

its saved properties and parameters.

ENVIRGBToHSIRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that has been

transformed from a red/green/blue (RGB) to
hue/saturation/intensity (HSI) color space.
ENVITaskParameter::QueryProperty Return information about the properties of the parameter.

ENVITransposeRaster Construct an ENVIRaster from a source raster that has been

transposed.

ENVIUI::CreateFromDialog Display a dialog containing a specified user interface (UI)

element for selecting object or task parameters. It allows you to
preview a user interface element when writing API scripts and
custom tasks.

ENVIUI::SelectROI Display a dialog for selecting regions of interest (ROIs).

ENVIView::CreateGridLinesLayer Create grid lines to overlay on a raster or vector layer.

New Classification Routines

Object Description

ENVIApplyScaleOffsetToExamples This function applies a gain and offset to the examples in

an ENVIExamples object. Its purpose is to get the data into
a consistent range of values prior to classification.

ENVICalculateConfusionMatrixFromRaster This function returns a reference to an

ENVIConfusionMatrix object computed from a
classification raster and truth regions of interest (ROIs).

ENVIClassifyRaster This function classifies a raster using a trained classifier.

ENVIConfusionMatrix This function returns a reference to an

ENVIConfusionMatrix object, which contains a confusion
matrix and classification accuracy metrics that indicate
how well a classifier performed.

ENVIEvaluateClassifier This function takes in truth examples, truth class values,

and a classifier. It uses the classifier and truth examples
(ignoring the class values) to calculate predicted class
values. Then it computes a confusion matrix and accuracy
metrics between the truth and predicted class values.

ENVIExamples This is a reference to an ENVIExamples object, which

contains examples and class values used as input to the
 training method of a classification trainer and to evaluate
the performance of a classifier.

ENVIExtractExamplesFromRaster This function creates an ENVIExamples object that

contains examples, class values, and other properties from
an input raster and regions of interest (ROIs).

ENVIGradientDescentTrainer This function uses a Gradient Descent algorithm to train a

classifier that reports a gradient; for example, Softmax
Regression.

ENVIIterativeTrainer This function uses an iterative loop to train a classifier that

knows how to update its own weights; for example,
Support Vector Machine (SVM).

ENVIShuffleExamples This function shuffles examples and class values from an

ENVIExamples object in order to create a random
distribution of training data used for classification.
Random ordering of the examples is important if the
examples are split into multiple sets (such as training and
evaluation sets).

ENVISoftmaxRegressionClassifier This function classifies a dataset using a Softmax

regression classifier.

ENVISplitExamples This function splits examples and class values from an

ENVIExamples object into two sets of examples and class
values. A common scenario is to use one set for training a
classifier and the other set for evaluation.

ENVISVMClassifier This function classifies a dataset using a support vector

machine (SVM) classifier.

ENVITrainClassifier This function trains a classifier. It updates the original

classifier instead of creating a new output classifier.