[SatNews] Exelis (NYSE: XLS) and DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI) have agreed to provide a new commercial offering of cloud-based ENVI Earth science analytics for the DigitalGlobe Geospatial Big Data (GBD) platform. ENVI is the industry-leading remote sensing analytical software used by government, academic and private industry organizations to extract meaningful information from imagery and sensor data.

The agreement will enable all imagery users and customers of Exelis and DigitalGlobe to easily combine powerful ENVI geospatial analytics with the vast DigitalGlobe image library to solve challenging environmental, natural resource, and global security problems.

“This agreement between Exelis and DigitalGlobe creates a single platform that customers can effectively use to solve challenging problems and define new market opportunities,” said Chris Young, president of Exelis Geospatial Systems. “This platform removes the logistical challenges that have inhibited this sort of innovation such as processing power, data storage and hardware cost.”

Designed and built by Exelis, ENVI image analysis software has been used for more than 25 years to extract meaningful information from geospatial data. ENVI software helps users make better decisions regarding mineral exploration, precision agriculture, environmental degradation, national defense and more.

DigitalGlobe’s cloud-based GBD offering is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) model designed to create a new ecosystem in which partners and developers can leverage their expertise and an application programming interface, or API, to create new customer solutions at a global scale.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to expose our 15-year catalog of high-resolution satellite imagery to ENVI’s technologically sophisticated user base,” said Hyune Hand, DigitalGlobe’s senior vice president of Product Marketing and Management. “By coupling our imagery with these advanced analytic tools, users will be able to extract incredibly valuable information and insight about our changing planet—at scale.”