The Data Manager lists all datasets that are open in the current ENVI session. While the Layer Manager only lists the bands that are displayed in the view, the Data Manager lists all available bands of a raster. If wavelengths are defined in the ENVI header file, the Data Manager shows wavelength colors next to each band. Bands with invisible wavelengths are colored black. If bad bands are defined in the header file, those bands are marked with a warning symbol.

See the following for details on using the Data Manager:

Open and Display Files

If the Data Manager preference Auto Display Files On Open is set to Yes (the default), ENVI automatically displays the data upon opening. If the preference is set to No, then select how you want to display the data, as described in the Manually Display Files section.

  1. Open the Data Manager with one of the following:

    • From the menu bar, select File > Data Manager.

    • From the Toolbar, click the Data Manager button .

    Click the Pin button in the Data Manager Toolbar to have the Data Manager persist on the screen as you load subsequent layers into the display. Click the button again to have the Data Manager close whenever you load layers into the view.

  2. Click the Open button in the Data Manager Toolbar and browse for a file from the Open dialog that appears.

  3. To close one or more files in the Data Manager, select one of the following from the Data Manager Toolbar:

    • Select the file(s) to close and click the Close File button.

    • Click Close All Files button to close all open files.

    When you close a file from the Data Manager, it also removes the layers from the Layer Manager and closes all temporary files that were created in the current ENVI session.

File Type Icons

The different file types are indicated by icons that appear next to the filename in the Data Manager. The icons are as follows:

Multispectral dataset Multispectral file

Grayscale image Grayscale file

Classification image Classification file

NITF file

Esri raster, point, or line and polygon file

Annotation file

Point file

Polyline file

Polygon file

ROI file

Manually Display Files

If Auto Display Files On Open is not set to display files in the view automatically, use the following to manually display the files:

To manually display raster data:

  • To assign an RGB combination, click the band name you want to assign to red, then repeat to assign the green and blue selections. Click the Load Data button.
  • To load a true-color image, right-click on a filename in the Data Manager and select Load True Color. The image must have wavelengths defined for this option to be available. ENVI defines true color as the smallest difference in the wavelength values closest to red as 0.64 µm, green as 0.55 µm, and blue as 0.47 µm.
  • To load a color-infrared (CIR) image, right-click on a filename in the Data Manager and select Load CIR. The image must have wavelengths defined for this option to be available. ENVI defines color infrared as the smallest difference in the wavelength values closest to near-infrared as 0.86 µm, red as 0.65 µm, and green as 0.55 µm.
  • To load a grayscale image, select a band and click the Load Grayscale button, or right-click on a band and select Load Grayscale.
  • To display an image that has assigned default bands in the associated ENVI header, right-click on a filename and select Load Default . If you do not define default bands to load but the image file contains wavelength information, Load Default uses the default setting in the Auto Display Method For Multispectral Files preference.
  • You can drag-and-drop individual bands from the Data Manager to multiple views.
  • You can drag-and-drop a multispectral filename from the Data Manager to a view to display an RGB image in that view.
  • To open a file in a new view, enable the Load in New View check box, right-click on a filename, and select from one of the Load options.

To manually display other data types:

  • To load an ROI, right-click on the ROI name and select Load ROI, or select multiple ROIs, right-click, and select Load Files. You can also click and drag one or more ROIs from the Data Manager to the raster to associate it with in the Layer Manager. If the raster already has associated ROIs, you can click and drag to the Regions of Interest folder under the raster layer.
  • For vector shapefiles that are stored in the CSSHPA Data Extension Segment (DES), right-click on a vector name in the Data Manager and select Load Vector.
  • See Open NITF and MIE4NITF Files for more information about browsing and displaying these formats.

File Information

The File Information category of the Data Manager provides detailed information about a file. This category is collapsed by default. You can expand or collapse this category by clicking the arrow next to the category name. When expanded, the File Information category lists information derived from the file header. A subset of this information is also displayed in the

To edit header information, see ENVI Header Files.

Raster Layer Information

  • File: Filename, including the full path.
  • Dims: File dimensions, including number of rows, columns, and bands; and interleave (BIL, BIP, or BSQ).
  • Data Type: Data type (unsigned integer, byte, etc.)
  • Size: File size in bytes. This information is available for all datasets except for WCS and WMS remote datasets.
  • File Type: File format.
  • Wavelength: Wavelength range, if wavelength information is available.
  • Projection: Projection name (for georeferenced images), including datum and pixel size. If the file contains rational polynomial coefficient (RPC) information, the text *RPC* precedes the projection type.
  • Upper Left Corner: Image coordinates for the upper-left pixel in the image for images with XSTART and YSTART values (extracted from the ENVI header). If your image is a spatial subset of a larger image, the image coordinate system references the parent (or larger) image.

Vector Layer Information

  • File: Filename, including the full path.
  • Shape Type: Type of vector record (Point, Polyline, Polygon).
  • Number of Records: Number of vector records in the file.
  • Number of Vertices: Number of vertices in the file.
  • Number of Quad-Tree Nodes: Number of quadtree nodes created.
  • File Size: File size, in bytes.
  • Attributes: Indicates whether or not an attribute table exists for this layer.
  • Projection: Projection name (for georeferenced data), including datum and measurement units.

Annotation Layer Information

  • File: Filename, including the full path.
  • Number of Annotation Items: Number of annotation items in the file.
  • Number of Quad-Tree Nodes: Number of quadtree nodes created. Annotations currently use only one node.
  • Projection: Projection measurement units.

ROI Layer Information (for .roi files)

  • Region Name: Region of interest name.
  • Number of Elements: The number of elements, which is 1.
  • Name: Region name from ENVI Classic.
  • Dims: File dimensions as samples and lines.
  • Npts: The number of image pixels for this ROI.

Band Selection

To create a new RGB layer consisting of three bands from different files, use the steps below. The images must be coregistered and have the same x and y dimensions. Bands from a palette-based image are not supported.

  1. Open the image files.
  2. Expand the Band Selection category.
  3. With the red band selected in the Band Selection category, click on a band name from any file to assign that band to red.
  4. Repeat for the green and blue bands.
  5. Click the Load Data button.

The resulting RGB image is added to the Layer Manager for display; it is not added to the Data Manager as a new image. To create an RGB layer that you can export to a file, use the Build Layer Stack tool or the ENVIMetaspectralRaster routine in the API.

Send Files to ArcGIS Pro

If ArcGIS Pro is installed, you can send one or more open files from ENVI to ArcGIS Pro. When the dataset displayed in both ENVI and ArcGIS Pro, you can set the extent to use, and link the ENVI view and ArcGIS Pro view to synchronize them. See ArcGIS Pro Integration for details on setting extents and linking the views.

Supported file types are rasters and vectors. Raster files must be saved in a format supported by ArcGIS Pro. If ArcGIS Pro cannot read the file, ENVI will save the raster to a .dat file before sending it to ArcGIS Pro.

Note that ArcGIS Pro uses different logic to open raster files in terms of histogram stretching and how to handle files that produce multiple rasters when opened (such as NITF). This is due to ENVI not sending pixel data to ArcGIS Pro, it is sending a file to open.

To send files to ArcGIS Pro from the Data Manager:

  1. Start ArcGIS Pro.

  2. Select the file(s) to send in the Layer Manager, then click the Open Selected in ArcGIS Pro button on the Toolbar .

  3. ArcGIS Pro creates a project for the dataset, then opens it in a view.