On Mar 13, 2008, at 7:38 PM, grass-dev-request@lists.osgeo.org wrote:
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:38:34 +0700
From: "Yann Chemin" <yann.chemin@gmail.com>
Subject: [GRASS-dev] opening any RS/GIS file in their original format
directly in GRASS...
To: "GRASS Developer Mailing List" <grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID:
<4f37eb890803131938l7f08d8ccwc0583a137c142cbe@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"Hello list,
many first time users get a little bit "estranged" by the scientifically
robust way of starting GRASS by setting up a DB/location/mapset.While the "create location from georeferenced file" button in TCLTK gui (not
yet in wxpython it seems) is an very nice step,
This IS in wxPython. All kinds of location creation options are packaged together in a nice location creation wizard.
I would like your ideas about the feasibility of a CLI command similar to
"grass63 rs_image.tif" or "grass63 shapfile.shp" possibly having a
right-click option: "open with... => Grass63" like you can see in many OSes
these days.
The idea of opening a file from its original format into GRASS certainly seems convenient. However, a GIS is not a wordprocessor, making this a much more complex task that is appears. Still worth thinking about how to do it, but we need to recognize the difficulty of the task.
Note also that there is no CLI for Windows, and most Mac users don't know that they have a CLI.
The idea would be to create a temporary location (if not already there and
compatible) from this image/GIS_cover data, import it , load layer(s), and
display it(them).
The issues is THEN what to do with it? For a GIS to be useful (and not just a graphics program), all data layers need to be georeferenced properly. This has been the big sticking point. Programs like ArcGIS can be very misleading to users in this respect.
On the other hand, QGIS will open a shapefile on double-clicking the file and display it correctly (assuming it has proper georeferencing info). So this is doable for some data at least.
Michael