Hello Everyone,

It's Chief Warrant Officer 3 Augustus Wright here, and this is officially my last blog as an Army Training with Industry (TWI) Student, although you will certainly hear from me again.

Can you believe a year has passed already? When I came on board at Harris Geospatial last August the goal was to facilitate mutually improved understanding, strengthen the partnership and better learn ENVI to ultimately enhance the US Army’s combat effectiveness. With all that has been learned, shared and documented in the last 12 months, I think we’ve accomplished what we set out to do and more. I was made to feel as though I was a part of the Harris Geospatial team. To reciprocate this hospitality, a few Army Challenge Coins have been passed out this week. If you are a Soldier, then you know what that means. Harris is a part of the team, so when you see a member at the upcoming ENVI Analytics Symposium or any other conference or encounter, challenge them to show you their coin or beverages are on them; just kidding about the beverages J.

With respect to the past twelve months, I’d say it has been an absolute marathon of learning. When I first arrived, my experience with ENVI was novice at best. I had successfully implemented solutions such as anomaly detection and change detection during tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. However, like many other Defense & Intelligence users, I was still heavily reliant on other software suites to perform certain workflows, such as mosaicking, orthorectification and producing specialized Compressed Arc-Digitized Raster Graphics (CADRG). This wasn’t because ENVI couldn’t accomplish these tasks, but rather because Soldiers like me just didn’t know how to using ENVI. 

I’m confident enough to now say that this knowledge gap has been bridged for the D&I community with the help of the ENVI® Pocket Guides VOLUME 1 | BASICS and VOLUME 2 | INTERMEDIATE. Download the complete ENVI Pocket Guides for free today.

Volume 1 | Basic provides succinct instructions on how to perform the following tasks using ENVI:

1. Understand the Interface
2. Mosaic data
3. Subset data
4. Orthorectify data
5. Pan Sharpen data
6. Perform change detection
7. Perform anomaly detection
8. Produce a terrain categorization (TERCAT)
9. Export data to CADRG

Volume 2 | Intermediate builds on the basics by providing succinct steps on how to perform the following tasks using ENVI and IDL:

1. Add Grid reference & count features
2. Perform Band Math
3. Layer Stack images
4. Exploit Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) bands
5. Perform Spectral Analysis in general
6. Perform Image Calibration/ Atmospheric Correction
7. Extract features from LiDAR
8. Batch Processing using IDL

TWI has been an honor and a privilege. I strongly recommend continuation of this program by both Harris Geospatial and the Army. I can certainly say that Army Technicians’ and Noncommissioned Officers’ development yearns for such opportunities. There is absolutely no way I could have learned enough to compile the Pocket Guides in any other setting. Again, it has been a marathon, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks for the hospitality and opportunity from the bottom of my heart to the good folks at ENVI.

Chief Wright~ Out for Now.