Use the Data Manager to manage the datasets that are open in the current ENVI session.

See the following sections for details:

Open Files

To open files in the Data Manager:

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

    • From the ENVI menu bar, select File > Data Manager.
    • From the ENVI Toolbar, click the Data Manager button .
  2. In the Data Manager Toolbar, click the Open button . The Open dialog appears.
  3. Select one or more files to open and click Open.

Tree and Thumbnail Views

The files are added to the Data Manager, where the left panel shows the opened files in a Tree View and the right panel shows file information for the selected file. The file information is in HTML format and can be copied and pasted into email or other types of documents. Click and drag to select the information, then use Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+P to paste.

Select the Thumbnails tab in the Data Manager to switch from the Tree View to a Thumbnail View. Hover the cursor over the thumbnails to see the filenames. To change the thumbnail size, use the slider bar in the Data Manager Toolbar:

If a raster, vector, or annotation file contains map information, the right panel displays a world map with a red location marker to indicate where the data was collected. Click on the marker to open a Reference Map Link (Powered by ESRI®) and zoom to the location:

Create File Groups

In the Tree View, you can group related files together to organize the them in the Data Manager.

Select the files to group, then right-click and select Group. The files will be grouped under a folder called Group Folder. To rename Group Folder right-click it, select Rename Folder, and enter a new name. To undo the grouping, right-click the folder and select Ungroup. The files will be returned to their original hierarchy in the Data Manager.

Automatically Load Data

The Auto Display Files On Open setting in File > Preferences determines whether to automatically load the data into the ENVI view.

  • If set to Yes, ENVI automatically loads the data into the view when you open the file.
  • If set to No, the file will open only in the Data Manager and you can use any of the options in Manually Load Data to load the data into the view.

You can override the preference setting by enabling or disabling the Display check box in the Data Manager Toolbar before you open a file.

When files are loaded into the view, they are added to the Layer Manager.

If a multispectral image has wavelength information, the Autodisplay Method for Multispectral Files setting in File > Preferences determines the default RGB selection to load for multispectral files. The options are:

  • True Color: (the default) 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.
  • Color Infrared (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.

Manually Load Data

Use the following methods to manually load rasters, bands, ROIs, vectors, and other data into the view. When you have selected the data to load, click the Display button at the bottom of the left panel to load the file(s) into the current view. Or, click the drop-down arrow next to the Display button for additional display options, as follows:

  • Display in Current View (the default action for the Display button)
  • Display in New View
  • Display Each Item in New View (when multiple files are selected)

You can also right-click on a file or band in the Tree View and choose how to display it from the context menu that appears.

As described in the previous section, the Autodisplay Method for Multispectral Files setting in File > Preferences determines the default RGB selection that will be made when you select one or more multispectral rasters in the Data Manager.

Manually load rasters into the view with the following:

  • Drag-and-drop individual files or bands from the Tree View tab to the view.
  • Drag-and-drop individual thumbnails from the Thumbnail tab to the view.
  • Use the Ctrl or Shift keys to select multiple files or thumbnails to load.
  • To display an RGB image, drag-and-drop a multispectral file from the Tree View tab/Thumbnail tab to the view.
  • To assign an RGB combination different from the default selection, click the band names to assign to red, green, and blue. Or, use one of the other methods described in Band Selection.
  • To load a true-color image, CIR image, or other type of predefined band combination, see Dynamic Band Selection.
  • To load a grayscale image, toggle the RGB button to Grayscale and select any grayscale band.

To manually load other data types:

  • To load an ROI, select one or more ROI names in the Display Manager.
  • Click and drag one or more ROIs from the Data Manager to the raster in the Layer Manager to associate it with. 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), select one or more vector names in the Data Manager.
  • For more information about browsing and displaying NITF and MIE4NITF formats, see Open NITF and MIE4NITF Files .

To load data into a different view, click the Create New View button in the Data Manager Toolbar, then use any method described above to load the data.

Band Selection for Rasters

RGB band selection tools for rasters are located at the bottom of the left panel.

Dynamic Band Selection

Use the Dynamic Band Selection tool to do the following:

  • Select preset band combinations from a list
  • Create custom band combinations
  • Save custom band combinations to reuse or share

To select a preset band combination:

ENVI provides preset band combinations you can apply to your rasters. Any custom band combinations you save will also appear in the list of presets. To select a preset, click the drop-down arrow next to the Predefined Band Combinations button and select an option. ENVI includes the following presets:

  • True Color
  • Color Infrared
  • Shortwave Infrared
  • False Color
  • Agriculture
  • Vegetation
  • Geology
  • Bathymetric
  • Atmospheric Penetration
  • Land/Water

To create and save your own band combinations:

To create custom RGB band combinations, select the bands to use in Tree View, or click and drag the red, blue, and green slider bars at the bottom of the left panel to select the bands.

You can save band combinations you create. The band combinations will be added to the drop-down list of presets and saved to the .idl\envi\preferencesx_x\display_bands.json file. The display_bands.json file can be shared with other ENVI users.

To save a band combination:

  1. Select the RGB band combination as desired.
  2. Click the drop-down arrow next to the Predefined Band Combinations button and select Add Band Combination.
  3. Enter a Band combination name or use the default name.
  4. Click the OK button to save it.

To restore band combinations from a file, click the drop-down arrow and select Restore Band Combinations, then browse and select the display_bands.json file.

To remove custom-saved band combinations from the drop-down list and the display_bands.json file, click the drop-down arrow and select Reset Band Combinations.

Hybrid Band Selection

You can create a new RGB layer consisting of three bands from different files. For hybrid band selection, the images must be co-registered, and they must have the same x and y dimensions. Bands from a palette-based image are not supported.

To create a hybrid band selection:

  1. Expand the band selection for each file to use.
  2. Click on a band name from any open file to assign that band to red.
  3. Repeat for the green and blue bands.
  4. Click the Display button.

The resulting RGB image is added to the Layer Manager for display, but it is not added to the Data Manager as a new image. To create an RGB layer you can export to a file, use the Build Layer Stack tool or the ENVIMetaspectralRaster routine in the ENVI 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: 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 because ENVI does not send 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. In the Data Manager, select the file(s) to send to ArcGIS Pro, then click the Open Selected in ArcGIS Pro button on the Data Manager Toolbar.
  3. ArcGIS Pro creates a project for the dataset, then opens it in a view.