Enjoying GRASS

Why?

Goals:

• Get GRASS running; demystify it
• Learn a another tool to do the same task
• Show to capabilties to the class
• Do some a fun map with it

1. Focussing on technology not on the GIS applications in this presentation.
2. Got some fun data from a different planet to map!

    

    

    

   What is GRASS

   GRASS Mini-HOWTO by David A. Hastings

   History

   • 1982: US Army Corps of Engineers, Constriction Engineering Research Laboratory (USA/CERL), Champaign, Illinois
   • The GRASS Interagency Steering Committee (GIASC); The GRASS Military Steering Committee
   • 1988 Award from Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) for quality software
   • ~90: Open GRASS Foundation -> Open GIS Consortium
   • 1992: 4.1 last CERL Version
   • 1996: USA/CERL dropps support; Commercialisation
     Wants to use GRASS internally and COTS; contracts with
     1. ESRI
     2. Intergraph
     3. Logiciels et Applications Scientifiques (L.A.S.) Inc. -> Grassland
   • 1997: Baylor University ; Webpage
   • 1997:

     The GRASS Development Team
     Baylor University, Waco, Texas, U.S.A.
     University of Hannover, Germany
     

   Promised Capabilties

   4.2:
   • render images, 30
   • Raster, 60
   • Vector, 30
   • Remote Sensing, 30
   • Analysis
   GRASS Fact Sheet

    

    

    

   Getting it to run?

   Internet

   • GRASS Homepage at Baylors
   • The GRASS European Homepage might even be the better resource.

   Source Code

   • Get it: http://www.baylor.edu/~grass/
   • Compile it.
   • Install helper software
   • Read Documentation GDP - GRASS Documentation Project

   community

   • Mailinglist
   • A person with a similar problem: Bill Hughes
   • Giving back.

    

    

    

   Growing some samples

   GRASS is terminal, text command based. Shocking list of manpages!
   There is a new GUI frontend.

   A typical session

   Raster

   Example data from the GRASS Seeds Beginners Tutorial 12km x 12km North west Leicestershire, England.
   Basic geographical data: from the Bartholomew 1:250000 digital map data
   image: standard Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) Band 4, captured 8th July 1984
   DEM/Contour data: digitised manually from a 1:50000 scale paper map source
   
   

    

    

    

   Vector

   TIGER Census Data. Extracted by Bill Hughes. (Jefferson County?)
   

    

    

    

   Vector/Sites

   

    

    

    

    

   Fancy

   d.3d

   

   Moving Fun

   • Environmental Modeling and Visualisation
   • Multidimensional interpolation and visualization in GRASS GIS
   • Interpolation and visualization from 3D scattered data using GRASS GIS.

    

    

    

   Free Software is Important for Science & Education

   • Comprehensible/Transparent
   • The turnback is faster
   • Support: Your Time <--vs--> Your money
   • Everybody can recreate the results -> Falsification
   • Give it to students
   • Us it as long as you want

   Conclusion

   • Real test still missing
   • GRASS will get better, but will remain dragon!
   • Advantages: Powerful, shell scripting
   • Disadvantages: Takes longer to make "nice" maps; harder to learn for people who never used command line applications
   • GRASS is an Alternative!

    

    

    

   Future?

   • Still have to do the final map!
   • Discovering more about GRASS
   • GRASS on the UWM alphas?

    

    

    

    

    

     Borrowed from Tom Polakin's Webpage

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   archived: December 2003 - page revision: Tue May 18 17:48:35 CDT 1999
   Part of Bernhard Reiter's archive.

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   [ Archived: Bernhard's UWM Homepage ]