Forwarded for Jack Garner
______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA
voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
------ Forwarded Message
From: Jack Garner <jgarner@envirogroup.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:46:32 -0700
To: Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu>
Subject: RE: [GRASSGUI] Re: [GRASS5] re: Grass GUIDr. Barton -
Please excuse this interruption from a non-developer. However, watching
this thread and others gives me a necessary perspective into development of
the GRASS program.I have downloaded and installed the v.6 but have not yet had a chance to try
it. I intend to try GRASS as a substitute to the over-priced commercial
GISs out there. Have used ESRI for (=/-) 8 years and can't reasonably
afford the extensions which I would only use ocassionally.As a 'user' who does the analysis but who can't get the 'hang' of
programming, I depend upon people like yourself to develop the tools. I
sincerely appreciate those efforts! In particular, I also appreciate the
efforts of all those who develop for ease of use.To my point then: I cannot agree with Syd Visser's statement: "Although a
display is not really a part of a true GIS, . . ". The display is
absolutely the most necessary part of a ". . true GIS . . ", maybe not
completely for in-process analysis but for end-product interpretation and
distribution to clients. On the other hand, I definitely agree with Mr.
Visser about employing 3D 'right up front'. I use 2D GIS for my daily work.
I have seen the 3D extensions in the commercial versions and to use the
coloquial: their end product is 'lame', lacking any real vibrance, utility
or application away from the "mother program". Any 2.5D, 3D, etc. work I do
has to be done with a healthy dose of manipulation from an outside graphics
program such Adobe Illustrator.I can't tell you how many times I have been asked by my boss and any number
of the engineers here: "Can I get this in 3D? Can I have your
interpretation of the contaminant plume under the surface but over the
bedrock and I want to show all three simultaneously? Oh! And by the way,
I'd like to be able to take that as a movie to show the client or the public
how it may harm/hurt their cause?"To try and advance my efforts toward this end, I have been in communication
with Brad Whitlock at Lawrence Livermore National Labs
(whitlocb@smtp-2.llnl.gov) concerning the use of their program, called
VISIT, for just this type of 'true' 3D display. (I don't believe he would
object to my sharing his email address.) This program, like MayaVi and
Paraview use the VTK or SILO formats as their 'native' format. Doesn't work
so well when NO GIS out there writes to these formats. However, at my
behest, he has successfully written a Shapefile interpreter for the program
as well as a GDAL port to accept any of its raster formats. Unfortunately,
we haven't been able to try 3D shapefiles since I can't supply any of them
to him in that format. These routines work very well. Now, the only major
hurdle left is to attack the fundamental problem of getting 'standard' GIS
formats into useable formats for VISIT.Perhaps, it might be worth an inquiry to him to see if this effort might be
applicable to GRASS (the program I hopefull intend to use as my
program-of-choice.Thanks for the opportunity to butt-in and offer my two cents!
John C. "Jack" Garner
GIS Tech/Analyist
EnviroGroup Limited
7009 So. Potomac St.
Centennial, CO, 80112-----Original Message-----
From: grassgui-admin@grass.itc.it [mailto:grassgui-admin@grass.itc.it]On
Behalf Of Michael Barton
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 7:47 AM
To: sydv@sjgeophysics.com; grass5@grass.itc.it; GrassGUI
Subject: [GRASSGUI] Re: [GRASS5] re: Grass GUISyd,
I think your comments about visualization and 3D are right on the money.
AFAICT, GRASS is far ahead of the rest of the pack of GIS, in terms of its
abilities to work with true 3D (NVIZ has had some major improvements in the
last couple months, so you should take a look at it again.) We could (and
should) capitalize on that. I also agree with your comments about hardware
and looking to the future. The only caveat is that GRASS is important
globally, where hardware varies considerably.Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
------ End of Forwarded Message