2020 has certainly been an interesting year, to say the least. We would like to thank our customers for their perseverance in these tumultuous times. We would also like to recognize their use of geospatial data and analytics to find new ways to solve many of the world’s most challenging problems such as responding to disasters, understanding our changing climate and keeping us safe.

We made some big shifts this year as many in our workforce went virtual. Like our customers, we didn’t let stay at home orders hamper our ability to do business. To help many of our customers’ transition in the spring from the office to a virtual working world, we offered temporary home-use licenses until organizations were able to effectively support their workers.

When working from home became the new normal, the opportunities for face-to-face conversations disappeared. To address this gap, we launched Geospatial Distancing, a regular series of live, informal video panel chats with experts and influencers in the remote sensing industry. Geospatial Distancing combines nerdy discourse with the unpredictability of live broadcasts. Each episode brings new panelists and topics together with our virtual audience to provide virtual face-to-face interaction, answer questions, and let attendees enjoy the unscripted repartee. 

Sometimes working from home you gain an unexpected attendee during customer calls, SAR is pretty fascinating, regardless of your age. Amelia, age 3

Similar to Geospatial Distancing, we held our 6^th annual ENVI Analytics Symposium (EAS) virtually this year. Like past years, EAS provided a venue for the community of geospatial users, analysts, scientists, and vendors to connect and explore new trends and solutions transforming this dynamic ecosystem. Because EAS was held virtually, attendance more than doubled as people dialed in from 19 different countries to hear industry thought leaders discuss the theme, “The Geospatial Vision for the Next Decade.”

Like the users of our technology, we did not let limitations we encountered this year put a damper on our innovation. On the technology front, we introduced ENVI Server as part of ENVI 5.6. ENVI Server makes it easier than ever to distribute processing using ENVI’s powerful tools. This help users save time, fully utilize existing hardware, and easily distribute processing to local servers, all without needing to code! And best yet, ENVI Server is included with ENVI 5.6 at no additional cost.

Over the year, many customers turned to us to create enterprise solutions as a key part of their business growth strategy. Utilizing our skills and experience, we helped organizations transition from desktop to scalable and planet-scale data processing applications. This can enable more collaboration and efficiency, the ability to process all of your available data, and get the answers you need.

2020 saw the adoption of ENVI Deep Learning by many organizations. ENVI Deep Learning is commercial off-the-shelf deep learning technology that is specifically designed to work with remotely sensed imagery to solve geospatial problems. The ENVI Deep Learning module helps remove the barriers to performing deep learning with geospatial data. The module has intuitive tools and workflows that don’t require programming and enable users to easily label data and generate models with the click of a button.

2020 also saw a large adoption of ENVI SARscape Analytics. The use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data has become increasingly popular due to its many advantages such as its ability to capture data day or night and see through clouds. However, SAR data can be complex and difficult to work with. NV5 and sarmap S.A. teamed together to make the benefits of SAR data available to professionals across industries.

ENVI SARscape Analytics introduced easy-to-use tools for some of the most common SAR processing applications – extending the benefits of SAR data to more users. These tools can be accessed in the ENVI toolbox and ENVI Modeler as well as ArcGIS Pro, and do not require users to be an expert in SAR to run them!

2021 will mark 30 years since ENVI was created. In its early years, ENVI was the preeminent hyperspectral analysis technology. Over the course of time, ENVI has grown to become the industry standard for image processing and analysis. One reason it is used by everyone from image analysts to GIS professionals to scientists is its support of all types of data including hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal, LiDAR and SAR. ENVI can also be customized through an API and visual programming environment to meet specific project requirements and extract timely, reliable and accurate information.

Here is to hoping that 2021 treats all of us a lot better than 2020. We are here to support our customers, regardless of the circumstances, so if there is something we can do to help support your organization’s use of geospatial data and analysis or if we simply provide an answer derived from geospatial data, just let us know.