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NV5 Geospatial Blog

Each month, NV5 Geospatial posts new blog content across a variety of categories. Browse our latest posts below to learn about important geospatial information or use the search bar to find a specific topic or author. Stay informed of the latest blog posts, events, and technologies by joining our email list!



Not All Supernovae Are Created Equal: Rethinking the Universe’s Measuring Tools

Not All Supernovae Are Created Equal: Rethinking the Universe’s Measuring Tools

6/3/2025

Rethinking the Reliability of Type 1a Supernovae   How do astronomers measure the universe? It all starts with distance. From gauging the size of a galaxy to calculating how fast the universe is expanding, measuring cosmic distances is essential to understanding everything in the sky. For nearby stars, astronomers use... Read More >

Using LLMs To Research Remote Sensing Software: Helpful, but Incomplete

Using LLMs To Research Remote Sensing Software: Helpful, but Incomplete

5/26/2025

Whether you’re new to remote sensing or a seasoned expert, there is no doubt that large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini can be incredibly useful in many aspects of research. From exploring the electromagnetic spectrum to creating object detection models using the latest deep learning... Read More >

From Image to Insight: How GEOINT Automation Is Changing the Speed of Decision-Making

From Image to Insight: How GEOINT Automation Is Changing the Speed of Decision-Making

4/28/2025

When every second counts, the ability to process geospatial data rapidly and accurately isn’t just helpful, it’s critical. Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) has always played a pivotal role in defense, security, and disaster response. But in high-tempo operations, traditional workflows are no longer fast enough. Analysts are... Read More >

Thermal Infrared Echoes: Illuminating the Last Gasp of a Dying Star

Thermal Infrared Echoes: Illuminating the Last Gasp of a Dying Star

4/24/2025

This blog was written by Eli Dwek, Emeritus, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD and Research Fellow, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA. It is the fifth blog in a series showcasing our IDL® Fellows program which supports passionate retired IDL users who may need support to continue their work... Read More >

A New Era of Hyperspectral Imaging with ENVI® and Wyvern’s Open Data Program

A New Era of Hyperspectral Imaging with ENVI® and Wyvern’s Open Data Program

2/25/2025

This blog was written in collaboration with Adam O’Connor from Wyvern.   As hyperspectral imaging (HSI) continues to grow in importance, access to high-quality satellite data is key to unlocking new insights in environmental monitoring, agriculture, forestry, mining, security, energy infrastructure management, and more.... Read More >

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Create Richer Jupyter Notebooks with HTML from IDL 8.5.1

Jim Pendleton

The IDL 8.5.1 hotfix that will be released in the near future contains not only bug fixes addressing issues in IDL 8.5.

It also includes some new functionality that might grab your attention.

In IDL 8.5 the Python bridge was introduced to allow IDL and Python to interoperate in a seamless way.

To enhance this functionality, the iPython notebook kernel was published at the same time. I discussed some trickery to insert graphics animations into a notebook in an earlier blog post.

With IDL 8.5.1 a new feature has been added to the Jupyter interface that allows an IDL programmer to inject HTML directly into a Jupyter web page.

This opens up a new world of creative opportunities for IDL users.

Previously, output to the Jupyter notebook from IDL could either be in the form of graphics as generated from IDL's Direct Graphics or IDLgrBuffer object or in the form of literal text output sent to the standard output stream via routines such as PRINT and HELP.

Any attempts to send HTML (such as <HTML></HTML>) through PRINT that is intended to be interpreted by the browser would be escaped somewhere along the route. The result would show string literals in the browser rather than the intended interpretation.

In IDL 8.5.1, a new parsing step has been added that will recognize the string "<html>" at the start of any standard output string and will short-circuit the step of escaping the characters, passing the literal directly to the browser.  Lower character case is required for the tag.

Start a Jupyter IDL notebook, and enter

print, 'This is not a bold statement.'
print, '<html><em>But this is a bold statement.</em></html>'

Any valid HTML is acceptable. For example, you may write JavaScript from your IDL code directly to the browser.

Strings are not accumulated across multiple PRINT statements. Any single string written by a single PRINT that you intend to be treated as an HTML literal should be delimited by "<html>...</html>" tags.

The IDL and bridge string parsing do not perform any additional HTML validation and will not warn you of invalid syntax, though the target browser may when it attempts to interpret the string.

 

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