NV5 at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium 2025

9/16/2025

We recently presented three cutting-edge research posters at the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025 in Vienna, showcasing how NV5 technology and the ENVI® Ecosystem support innovation across ocean monitoring, mineral exploration, and disaster management. Explore each topic below and access the full posters to learn... Read More >

Monitor, Measure & Mitigate: Integrated Solutions for Geohazard Risk

9/8/2025

Geohazards such as slope instability, erosion, settlement, or seepage pose ongoing risks to critical infrastructure. Roads, railways, pipelines, and utility corridors are especially vulnerable to these natural and human-influenced processes, which can evolve silently until sudden failure occurs. Traditional ground surveys provide only periodic... Read More >

Geo Sessions 2025: Geospatial Vision Beyond the Map

8/5/2025

Lidar, SAR, and Spectral: Geospatial Innovation on the Horizon Last year, Geo Sessions brought together over 5,300 registrants from 159 countries, with attendees representing education, government agencies, consulting, and top geospatial companies like Esri, NOAA, Airbus, Planet, and USGS. At this year's Geo Sessions, NV5 is... Read More >

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

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 >

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Using SAR to Accurately Map an Oil Spill

Megan Gallagher Thursday, September 10, 2020

On July 25, the Japanese-owned ship MV Wakashio hit a coral reef while carrying 4,000 tons of fuel oil near Pointe d'Esny, which is close to the shores of the remote Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. On August 6, oil began leaking from the vessel.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from Sentinel-1 has been used to map the oil leakage and the environmental catastrophe affecting Mauritius. Traces of the oil spreading in the Blue Bay Marine Park are easily visible on SAR Sentinel-1 data compared to the optical Sentinel-2 image. The maximum extension of the spill has been detected using ENVI® SARscape and other ENVI analytics.

The migration of the vessel after its breakage has also been mapped using Sentinel-1 SAR data and ENVI.

Image Details: Copernicus Sentinel-1, track 78, VV polarization Copernicus Sentinel-2 Processing tools: ENVI 5.5.3 and ENVI SARscape 5.5.3, Intensity Time Series

For more about ENVI SARscape, click here. If you would like additional information, please contact us at GeospatialInfo@NV5.com.