ITT announces a new image processing product for GIS professionals

Partnership with ESRI allows ITT to deliver high-performance image processing and analysis solution integrated with the ArcGIS platform

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — ITT Corporation (NYSE:ITT), the developers of ENVI® image processing and analysis software, and ESRI, the leading provider of geographic information systems (GIS) software, ArcGIS®, today announced a strategic partnership to integrate their respective software technologies. This integration delivers advanced, high-performance image processing and analysis capabilities to the ArcGIS platform and expands the distribution of these new technologies globally.

To launch this partnership, ITT introduced a new product, ENVI EX, a high-performance image processing and analysis solution that is tightly integrated with ArcGIS and designed specifically to meet the needs of GIS professionals. As mapping and imagery-based applications continue to converge, ENVI EX supplies the growing market’s need for image processing and analysis solutions that are both easier to use and integrated with GIS workflows, and provide the scientific accuracy needed for decision makers.

Based on ENVI, ITT’s premier image processing and analysis solution, ENVI EX now provides ArcGIS users with the superior image analysis methods and algorithms trusted by imagery professionals for years. The product’s easy-to-use interface with intuitive processes guides users step by step through analyzing satellite and airborne imagery and data across a wide range of imaging modalities.

The new workflows in ENVI EX provide automated processes for solving problems that are common in GIS applications across a variety of industries. These workflows include tying an image to its geographic coordinate for accuracy in mapping, extracting features of interest from a large geographic area, detecting change in a region by comparing different images, classifying land cover, and finding anomalous features in an area.

The seamless integration between ENVI EX and ArcGIS allows GIS users to exchange data and files from ArcGIS to ENVI EX easily with simple drag and drop methods that preserve the style, symbology, vectors, and layer information from one product to another. In addition, integration with ArcGIS into the existing ENVI product line with the coming release of ENVI 4.7 brings workflow integration and map generation capabilities to imagery professionals currently using ENVI products.

“What ITT has achieved with ENVI EX is truly a breakthrough for the GIS community,” said Jack Dangermond, ESRI’s president. “ITT used its decades of experience to deliver high-performance tools and workflows to the ArcGIS platform that now let GIS professionals easily extract the important information in imagery to build richer content for geodatabases. This tight integration with ArcGIS marks the first step in our partnership with ITT. We look forward to collaboratively building additional imagery solutions for the GIS community in the years to come.”

“The growing demand to incorporate geospatial awareness and information into government, business, research and even daily life creates a natural marriage of imagery and GIS-based applications,” said Richard Cooke, president of ITT’s Visual Information Solutions business. “As a result, remote sensing and GIS workflows rapidly converge as analysts provide timely and accurate geospatial information for critical decisions. Our partnership with ESRI allows us to create the integrated software tools for the desktop and the enterprise that analysts need to move quickly from image collection to analytical products.”