Applying a color table in the animation tool

Topic:
ENVI's animation tool is set up to only display gray-scale versions of each band--even though a color table can be applied to one band of an image while it is loaded in a display group. This article discusses a workaround that allows users to apply color tables in the animation tool.

Discussion:
To use a color table with ENVI's animation tool, requires access to the IDL command prompt. As such, this article would only be useful to customers who have ENVI+IDL, To apply a color table, carry out the following steps:

1. Start ENVI+IDL
2. At the IDLDE command line, type:
   device, decomposed=0
   This sets the IDL display system to a mode where color tables can be applied manually to the entire ENVI session.
3. At the command line, type:
   xloadct
   This brings up an interactive IDL widget where one can select a color table that can be applied to the animation tool.
4. In ENVI, load the image to a display group (the color table is already applied) and then initialize the animation tool: Tools->Animation
   The animation sequence should now honor the loaded color table. Note that an outputted MPEG file, even with the color table applied, will still be in gray-scale.
5. When done, at the command line type:
   device, decomposed=1
   This returns the display system to normal.