ENVI is Software of Choice for Modern Archaeological Study of Ancient Mines.

Business Editors

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUISNESS WIRE)--July 18, 2000

Research Systems, Inc., a leading developer of technical visualization and application development software, announced today that its remote sensing software package ENVI(R) is being used by the multinational RAVEN team to locate and determine the environmental impact of ancient mines in Egypt, Spain and Scotland.

The RAVEN (Remote Sensing Archaeology and Visualization of the Environment) team is using ENVI, the Environment for Visualizing Images, to analyze spaceborne and satellite imagery in an effort to locate and explore ancient mines in several countries. Their hope is that this research will serve as a starting point to providing cleaner water to those areas.

The team, based out of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is using ENVI to detect, survey and analyze the structure of mines in three different areas. The first area contained the Mines of the Pharaohs, located in Sinai, Egypt. The second area was located in Spain and contained the Phoenician mines, and the third mine concentration was located on the Isle of Islay in Scotland.

The three locations were selected due to their climatic diversity, ranging from hyper-arid to wet. The team members worked with a wide variety of data in their research, including SIR-C, ALMAZ, CORONA, LANDSAT, SPOT, LIDAR, and GIS data-raster and vector.

ENVI can be used with all image data, and is the only remote sensing analysis software the RAVEN team uses. "The ability of ENVI to easily handle RADAR and optical data -- then rapidly fuse it to GIS data -- is unequaled, period," said Gary McKay, remote sensing archaeologist, University of Edinburgh. "Remote sensing archaeology is extremely interdisciplinary in its approach, and demands data fusion and analysis on an unprecedented scale in comparison to some other scientific disciplines. I need a `whole picture'-- and ENVI gives me what I want, quickly and easily, without taxing my oftentimes limited computer resources."

ENVI has been instrumental in several important discoveries:

-- Mines were successfully detected and mapped with imaging radar

data.

-- Landscape models were created to help understand previous

landscapes during a particular period, as in the case of

Islay, where ancient raised beaches denote the limit of

previous possible cultural sites.

-- ENVI provided the ability to easily create relatively accurate

landscape models, and to survey large areas by virtual

simulation, which will enable the archaeologist to establish

links between settlements.

For more information on the RAVEN team and their research, please visit their site at http://www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/arch/remotesense/index.html. For the full application story, please visit http://www.rsinc.com/AppProfile/envi_edin.cfm.

ENVI is written entirely in IDL(R), the Interactive Data Language, Research Systems' fourth-generation programming language for engineers, scientists and software developers with the need to build applications for visualizing large amounts of data. This means users can expand ENVI's features or create their own routines using IDL.

About Research Systems, Inc.

Boulder, Colo.-based Research Systems, Inc., is a privately-held company that supports more than 75,000 users of its data analysis and visualization software products worldwide through a direct sales force and network of international subsidiaries and distributors. Primary markets for the company's products are aerospace, earth sciences, physics, software development, medical imaging and engineering test and measurement. Additional information can be found at Research Systems' Web site www.ResearchSystems.com.

For more information regarding this press release, please contact Michelle Asher at [e-mail] or at 303/413-3951. ENVI is a registered trademark of BSC, LLC. IDL is a registered trademark of Research Systems, Inc.