ENVI 5.2 Release Notes
Revised 29 September 2014
New Features
ENVI 5.2 includes the new and enhanced features listed below. See the following sections:
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.
Known Issues
| ID |
Description |
| ENVI-70066 |
Opening two GF-1 WFV images results in image artifacts |
| Opening two Gaofen-1 images in the same view results in gaps of data. Workaround: Display multiple Gaofen-1 images in separate views. |
| ENVI-70110 |
Georeferencing from GLT produces holes in a south polar stereographic projection |
| When using Latitude/Longitude bands to create a geographic lookup table (GLT), images georeferenced using the GLT in a southern hemisphere polar stereographic projection contain holes near their center. |
| ENVI-70139 |
Vector layer is hidden temporarily on "Accept" while animating a raster series |
| If you draw a polygon vector layer and accept it while a raster series is animating, the polygon layer disappears. Workaround: Pause the animation between Accept operations, or step through the series one frame at a time while editing the vector layer. |
| IDL-69220 |
Java bridge not configured properly when running 32-bit IDL from a 64-bit installation |
| The software installer builds a Java bridge configuration file specific to 32-bit or 64-bit platforms. When running 32-bit IDL from a 64-bit installation, the Java configuration file does not work and IDL issues an error message that it cannot initialize the Java bridge. This affects the ENVI "Chip to Geospatial PDF" feature. |
|
Installation error on Windows platforms: "Key not valid for use in specified state" |
| Some customers have reported this error during the installation process. It is caused by a Microsoft update (KB2918614), which affects the Windows installer service. Workaorund: uninstall this Microsoft update. For more information, see the Microsoft Community website. |
Fixed Issues
The following table lists issues that were fixed for ENVI 5.2.
| ID |
Description |
| ENVI-48044 |
ENVI could not animate a sequence of layers or bands. |
| ENVI-68875 |
Decision Tree did not update results. |
| ENVI-67602 |
AVNIR-2 data were not accurately georeferenced when using JAXA RPCs. |
| ENVI-69964 |
Toolbox and Layer Manager did not horizontally resize while docked. |
| ENVI-69923 |
Default bands changed in image display when the Edit Header tool was open and closed. |
| ENVI-69872 |
Convolutions and Morphology dialog did not have a Queue button. |
| ENVI-69843 |
ENVI did not have spatial bookmarks. |
| ENVI-69689 |
FLAASH issued error message with large files: "POINT_LUN Negative position argument not allowed." |
| ENVI-68930 |
ENVI should support the Esri® 10.1 projection engine. |
| ENVI-68862 |
Slovenian geographic transformations were incorrect. |
| ENVI-70130 |
ACE calculation should be mean-centered and have an option to include the sign component. |
| ENVI-70071 |
Documentation had incorrect PIXELSTATE keyword name for ENVIRaster::GetData. |
| ENVI-70064 |
Updates to CLASS COLORS metadata did not take effect in Layer Manager. |
| ENVI-70051 |
ENVICoordSys documentation code examples were incorrect. |
| ENVI-70042 |
Multi-byte band names displayed incorrectly in the Layer Manager and Data Manager. |
| ENVI-70038 |
New spectral libraries were not documented in the ENVI Help. |
| ENVI-70015 |
The Esri projection engine did not return an entry for GCS_WGS_1984_Major_Auxiliary_Sphere. |
| ENVI-70002 |
RPC Orthorectification "Advanced Options" documentation needed better clarification. |
| ENVI-69996 |
Setting an open-ended ROI threshold produced an incorrect pixel selection. |
| ENVI-69870 |
ENVI shifted DTED files by half a pixel. |
| ENVI-69857 |
Regridding was incorrect with data containing bad data, data-ignore values, or NaN values. |
| ENVI-69847 |
ENVI did not open NITF files with a custom GEOSDE projection in the API. |
| ENVI-69733 |
Home and End keyboard keys produced the opposite effect for ENVI toolbar sliders. |
| ENVI-69717 |
ENVI displayed artifacts along the border of SICD multi-segment images. |
| ENVI-69706 |
The Snail Trail did not properly reset after closing all layers in a view. |
| ENVI-69698 |
ENVI needs to support the new JGD2011 datum for Japan. |
| ENVI-69604 |
Shortcuts conflicted with pre-defined shortcut definitions for text annotation. |
| ENVI-69562 |
The "Replace selected cells with value" option did not work correctly with View/Edit Attributes. |
| ENVI-69504 |
ROI subsetting with ENVIRasters did not work when the ROI was projected to a spatial reference. |
| ENVI-69462 |
Issuing a .RESET_SESSION command crashed IDL if ENVI was building pyramids. |
| ENVI-69398 |
R/G/B check boxes in the Change Color Table dialog should be radio buttons instead. |
| ENVI-69168 |
Calling ENVI::OpenRaster() on some external formats multiple times resulted in an error message. |
| ENVI-66801 |
The Overview could not be selected when first switching to a view. |
| ENVI-66055 |
Users should be able to set preferences in the API. |
| CLASSIC-49097 |
SPEAR tools should check if the default output directory is writeable before processing. |
| CLASSIC-68532 |
The Seamless Mosaic tool issued error messages with some TIFF images. |
| CLASSIC-66760 |
ENVI Classic crashed when opening seven-band ERDAS Imagine files from a geodatabase. |
| CLASSIC-59642 |
ENVI needs a bookmark system to save locations of interest in a scene. |
Backward-Compatibility Notes
These items pertain to the ENVI application programming interface (API):
- ENVITaskParameter: the DIRECTION property now returns INPUT or OUTPUT. In previous releases, it returned IN, OUT, or IN/OUT.
- ENVIRPCOrthorectificationTask: the options for the DEM_IS_HEIGHT_ABOVE_ELLIPSOID property are
true or false. In previous releases, the options were 0 or 1. The OUTPUT_INTERPOLATION_METHOD property was renamed to RESAMPLING. It uses string values instead of integers.
- ENVIReprojectGLTTask: the options for the POLAR property are
true or false. In previous releases, the options were 0 or 1.
- ENVIRadiometricCalibrationTask: the CALIBRATION_TYPE and OUTPUT_DATA_TYPE properties use string values instead of integers.