| Dear All, My name is Rudolf from Indonesia and I would like to ask few question regarding GIS application. At the moment I am using Mac Computer and my friend who is working in Geology interested to use Mac laptop. However, there are few things he was concerned whether he can still use Arc Gis from ESRI on Mac or should he use native GIS software for Mac. From the website I knew that Grass GIS is native for Mac but whether the program compatible with ArcGIS software or not is not clear to me. So, these the questions I would like to know: 1. Would be possible to convert all ArcGIS data to Grass GIS like open file Word created in Windows in Mac? If yes, is there any change appear on Grass GIS of the data or would it be open as what it appeared in ArcGIS? 2. Is there GPS that can work with Mac? Like Garmin, which type/model? 3. Is there a demo version of Grass GIS I can try should answer to number 1 is yes? I guess that’s all for know and thanks a lot for the help. Regards, |
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On 30/09/08 05:46, Rudolf Pasaribu wrote:
Dear All,
My name is Rudolf from Indonesia and I would like to ask few question regarding GIS application. At the moment I am using Mac Computer and my friend who is working in Geology interested to use Mac laptop. However, there are few things he was concerned whether he can still use Arc Gis from ESRI on Mac or should he use native GIS software for Mac.
From the website I knew that Grass GIS is native for Mac but whether the program compatible with ArcGIS software or not is not clear to me. So, these the questions I would like to know:
1. Would be possible to convert all ArcGIS data to Grass GIS like open file Word created in Windows in Mac? If yes, is there any change appear on Grass GIS of the data or would it be open as what it appeared in ArcGIS?
No, you cannot just open ArcGIS data concerning layout, etc. Accessing data from an ArcGIS Geodatabase is possible if your ogr file transformation library is configured accordingly (don't know what the situation is on Mac).
The easiest way to get data from ArcGIS to GRASS is to export to shapefile and reimport to GRASS. You will, however, loose all layouting, table links, etc.
2. Is there GPS that can work with Mac? Like Garmin, which type/model?
Not sure, but I would think that any USB device should be usable, so you might need a serial-to-usb converter...
3. Is there a demo version of Grass GIS I can try should answer to number 1 is yes?
As GRASS is free software, you can just download and install GRASS from [1]. You might want to download some demo data to play around with, first [2]. You should also read through some documentation first, at least [3], [4], [5].
Moritz
[1] http://grass.osgeo.org/download/index.php (I would recommend you get version 6.3)
[2] http://grass.osgeo.org/download/data.php
[3] http://grass.osgeo.org/grass63/manuals/html63_user/helptext.html
[4] http://grass.osgeo.org/grass63/manuals/html63_user/vectorintro.html
[5] http://grass.osgeo.org/grass63/manuals/html63_user/rasterintro.html
On Sep 30, 2008, at 2:57 AM, Moritz Lennert wrote:
On 30/09/08 05:46, Rudolf Pasaribu wrote:
Dear All,
My name is Rudolf from Indonesia and I would like to ask few question regarding GIS application. At the moment I am using Mac Computer and my friend who is working in Geology interested to use Mac laptop. However, there are few things he was concerned whether he can still use Arc Gis from ESRI on Mac or should he use native GIS software for Mac.
From the website I knew that Grass GIS is native for Mac but whether the program compatible with ArcGIS software or not is not clear to me. So, these the questions I would like to know:
1. Would be possible to convert all ArcGIS data to Grass GIS like open file Word created in Windows in Mac? If yes, is there any change appear on Grass GIS of the data or would it be open as what it appeared in ArcGIS?No, you cannot just open ArcGIS data concerning layout, etc. Accessing data from an ArcGIS Geodatabase is possible if your ogr file transformation library is configured accordingly (don't know what the situation is on Mac).
It's theoretically possible. I haven't had much luck getting the mdbtools working on OSX - it compiles (with some hacking), but doesn't work. There is a commercial (but inexpensive) iODBC plugin for OSX (that is mdbtools-based) that almost works, but it has a critical BLOB bug that makes it useless. I've registered an bug with the author, but have not seen a fix in the past few updates.
That's for personal geodatabases.
For old-fashioned coverages, it's possible - GDAL/OGR has that built in, so you can directly convert those into GRASS.
The easiest way to get data from ArcGIS to GRASS is to export to shapefile and reimport to GRASS. You will, however, loose all layouting, table links, etc.
2. Is there GPS that can work with Mac? Like Garmin, which type/model?
Not sure, but I would think that any USB device should be usable, so you might need a serial-to-usb converter...
See gpsbabel.org for info. gpsbabel is used by GRASS. It also has a Garmin-only script that uses some Garmin tools (gardump or gpstrans). I include gpsbabel and gardump in my OSX binaries.
I've heard of success with gpsbabel on OSX, but I'm not sure about gardump.
For serial-based GPS units, a serial-usb converter works (I verified that a few years ago, but not recently, and not directly with GRASS).
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William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/
"Time is an illusion - lunchtime doubly so."
- Ford Prefect