[GRASS-user] GRASS plugin

GRASS GRASS user
,
1

Hi all.
The GRASS plugin does not have a maintainer since long. We at Faunalia
have done some smaller fixes, and financed, together with others, some
more bugfixing, through[0].
This situation is not ideal: without regular maintenance, bugs creep in,
and eventually major problems come out. Currently we have several
serious issues on vectors in Windows. It is therefore important that
someone fixes this, in order GRASS will remain fully usable from QGIS,
on all operating systems.
I'm therefore asking all the serious GRASS-QGIS users to step up and
give a hand, with either developer time or money. You are free not to do
it, but if you do it the future of this important tool will be bright
and reliable.
All the best.
--
http://www.faunalia.it/pc

[0]http://www.qgis.org/wiki/Bugs

2

I'm willing to help maintain this plugin but as I'm not a coder it will be limited to keeping the modules' UI up to date.

On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:40:09 +0100, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini@faunalia.it> wrote:

Hi all.
The GRASS plugin does not have a maintainer since long. We at Faunalia
have done some smaller fixes, and financed, together with others, some
more bugfixing, through[0].
This situation is not ideal: without regular maintenance, bugs creep in,
and eventually major problems come out. Currently we have several
serious issues on vectors in Windows. It is therefore important that
someone fixes this, in order GRASS will remain fully usable from QGIS,
on all operating systems.
I'm therefore asking all the serious GRASS-QGIS users to step up and
give a hand, with either developer time or money. You are free not to do
it, but if you do it the future of this important tool will be bright
and reliable.
All the best.

3

Il giorno lun, 21/03/2011 alle 14.49 +0100, jr.morreale@enoreth.net ha
scritto:

I'm willing to help maintain this plugin but as I'm not a coder it will
be limited to keeping the modules' UI up to date.

Thanks Jean-Roc.
Anyone willing to help for core issues?
All the best.
--
http://www.faunalia.it/pc

4

Hello,
IMHO the WPS (web processing service) approach to use GRASS GIS within
QGIS might be a better solution? All the location, projection and
mapset overhead would be avoided and the integration into QGIS would
be more intuitive. Additionally using the WPS approach will also make
Sextante, ArcGIS and other geo processing capabilities available in
QGIS. Also cloud geo processing will be available using this approach.
I would suggest to largely improve the existing WPS plugin from Horst
Düster (and partially me) to make QGIS to one of the best WPS clients
available.

Here an example of the capabilities of the current WPS QGIS - GRASS
GIS 7 approach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCnax9w1bCs

As far as i know the grass libraries are not designed to be used in
long running persistent applications, so there will always be problems
and a large effort migrating new GRASS GIS versions in QGIS. A WPS
client would be completely independent from changes in GRASS GIS API
or modules and will work with many other WPS backends.

Just my 2C
Sören

2011/3/21 Paolo Cavallini <cavallini@faunalia.it>:

Hi all.
The GRASS plugin does not have a maintainer since long. We at Faunalia
have done some smaller fixes, and financed, together with others, some
more bugfixing, through[0].
This situation is not ideal: without regular maintenance, bugs creep in,
and eventually major problems come out. Currently we have several
serious issues on vectors in Windows. It is therefore important that
someone fixes this, in order GRASS will remain fully usable from QGIS,
on all operating systems.
I'm therefore asking all the serious GRASS-QGIS users to step up and
give a hand, with either developer time or money. You are free not to do
it, but if you do it the future of this important tool will be bright
and reliable.
All the best.
--
http://www.faunalia.it/pc

[0]http://www.qgis.org/wiki/Bugs

_______________________________________________
grass-user mailing list
grass-user@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-user

5

Sören, just remind me, since when GRASS has a WPS server? AFAIK one
still needs to set-up something like PyWPS to get WPS goodies from
GRASS. I was playing around with different WPS implementations and
PyWPS was only one I got running. I wouldn't call it "user-friendly"
way how to provide analysis tools for endusers. OTOH I don't care, as
I run GRASS svn :wink:

Maris.

6

Hi Maris,

2011/3/22 Maris Nartiss <maris.gis@gmail.com>:

Sören, just remind me, since when GRASS has a WPS server? AFAIK one
still needs to set-up something like PyWPS to get WPS goodies from
GRASS. I was playing around with different WPS implementations and
PyWPS was only one I got running. I wouldn't call it "user-friendly"
way how to provide analysis tools for endusers. OTOH I don't care, as
I run GRASS svn :wink:

Indeed it is currently not user friendly to install and configure a
WPS GRASS GIS environment and GRASS does not have a WPS server
included. But GRASS GIS 7 supports WPS server by providing the
capability of creating WPS XML process descriptions for every module.
And there is the wps-grass-bridge which implements direct GRASS GIS 7
back-end support for PyWPS and ZOO WPS. The 52N WPS server uses the
wps-grass-bridge to implement GRASS GIS support too.

My hope is that i.e. 52N will provide a graphical installer for there
WPS GRASS GIS 7 and Sextante solution to make the deployment and use
of a WPS server quite simple.

Best regards
Soeren

Maris.

7

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 8:42 AM, Soeren Gebbert
<soerengebbert@googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi Maris,

2011/3/22 Maris Nartiss <maris.gis@gmail.com>:

Sören, just remind me, since when GRASS has a WPS server? AFAIK one
still needs to set-up something like PyWPS to get WPS goodies from
GRASS. I was playing around with different WPS implementations and
PyWPS was only one I got running. I wouldn't call it "user-friendly"
way how to provide analysis tools for endusers. OTOH I don't care, as
I run GRASS svn :wink:

Indeed it is currently not user friendly to install and configure a
WPS GRASS GIS environment and GRASS does not have a WPS server
included. But GRASS GIS 7 supports WPS server by providing the
capability of creating WPS XML process descriptions for every module.
And there is the wps-grass-bridge which implements direct GRASS GIS 7
back-end support for PyWPS and ZOO WPS. The 52N WPS server uses the
wps-grass-bridge to implement GRASS GIS support too.

My hope is that i.e. 52N will provide a graphical installer for there
WPS GRASS GIS 7 and Sextante solution to make the deployment and use
of a WPS server quite simple.

I just found this:

http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/WPS\\

As I do not know anything about WPS, it does not tell me much, but it
sounds like a very good idea to implement a client in QGIS.

Rainer

Best regards
Soeren

Maris.

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--
NEW GERMAN FAX NUMBER!!!

Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation
Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Natural Sciences Building
Office Suite 2039
Stellenbosch University
Main Campus, Merriman Avenue
Stellenbosch
South Africa

Cell: +27 - (0)83 9479 042
Fax: +27 - (0)86 516 2782
Fax: +49 - (0)321 2125 2244
email: Rainer@krugs.de

Skype: RMkrug
Google: R.M.Krug@gmail.com

8

Il giorno mar, 22/03/2011 alle 08.42 +0100, Soeren Gebbert ha scritto:

Indeed it is currently not user friendly to install and configure a
WPS GRASS GIS environment and GRASS does not have a WPS server
included. But GRASS GIS 7 supports WPS server by providing the
capability of creating WPS XML process descriptions for every module.
And there is the wps-grass-bridge which implements direct GRASS GIS 7
back-end support for PyWPS and ZOO WPS. The 52N WPS server uses the
wps-grass-bridge to implement GRASS GIS support too.

My hope is that i.e. 52N will provide a graphical installer for there
WPS GRASS GIS 7 and Sextante solution to make the deployment and use
of a WPS server quite simple.

Hi all.
Thanks for the suggestion. However, IMHO requiring the installation of a
WPS server, plus the configuration of all modules, is a rather heavy
requirement, and it will make the installation of the whole beast much
more cumbersome.
Furthermore, 52N is in java, which will make things only worse.
In addition, this does not seem a short term solution, and I think we
need something working smoothly *now*.
All the best.
--
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc

9

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini@faunalia.it> wrote:

Il giorno mar, 22/03/2011 alle 08.42 +0100, Soeren Gebbert ha scritto:

Indeed it is currently not user friendly to install and configure a
WPS GRASS GIS environment and GRASS does not have a WPS server
included. But GRASS GIS 7 supports WPS server by providing the
capability of creating WPS XML process descriptions for every module.
And there is the wps-grass-bridge which implements direct GRASS GIS 7
back-end support for PyWPS and ZOO WPS. The 52N WPS server uses the
wps-grass-bridge to implement GRASS GIS support too.

My hope is that i.e. 52N will provide a graphical installer for there
WPS GRASS GIS 7 and Sextante solution to make the deployment and use
of a WPS server quite simple.

Hi all.
Thanks for the suggestion. However, IMHO requiring the installation of a
WPS server, plus the configuration of all modules, is a rather heavy
requirement, and it will make the installation of the whole beast much
more cumbersome.
Furthermore, 52N is in java, which will make things only worse.

Agreed - no java where not necessary.

But PyWPS is python, which is already used widely in QGIS and GRASS.

In addition, this does not seem a short term solution, and I think we
need something working smoothly *now*.

Definitely - I haven't used the GRASS plugin for some time, but I see
it as an important aspect of QGIS. If it is not working nicely at the
moment, it should be fixed - no questions.

Nevertheless, I would suggest that for the future (mid term) the
possibility of replacing the GRASS plugin with WPS technology might be
the way forward, as it should open the possibilities to interface with
other WPS compliant applications as well.

Rainer

All the best.
--
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc

_______________________________________________
grass-user mailing list
grass-user@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-user

--
NEW GERMAN FAX NUMBER!!!

Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation
Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Natural Sciences Building
Office Suite 2039
Stellenbosch University
Main Campus, Merriman Avenue
Stellenbosch
South Africa

Cell: +27 - (0)83 9479 042
Fax: +27 - (0)86 516 2782
Fax: +49 - (0)321 2125 2244
email: Rainer@krugs.de

Skype: RMkrug
Google: R.M.Krug@gmail.com

10

Hi Sören,

That was a nice tutorial. I look forward to trying this approach out on my system.

Regards,
John

On Mar 21, 2011, at 4:28 PM, Soeren Gebbert wrote:

Hello,
IMHO the WPS (web processing service) approach to use GRASS GIS within
QGIS might be a better solution? All the location, projection and
mapset overhead would be avoided and the integration into QGIS would
be more intuitive. Additionally using the WPS approach will also make
Sextante, ArcGIS and other geo processing capabilities available in
QGIS. Also cloud geo processing will be available using this approach.
I would suggest to largely improve the existing WPS plugin from Horst
Düster (and partially me) to make QGIS to one of the best WPS clients
available.

Here an example of the capabilities of the current WPS QGIS - GRASS
GIS 7 approach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCnax9w1bCs

As far as i know the grass libraries are not designed to be used in
long running persistent applications, so there will always be problems
and a large effort migrating new GRASS GIS versions in QGIS. A WPS
client would be completely independent from changes in GRASS GIS API
or modules and will work with many other WPS backends.

Just my 2C
Sören

2011/3/21 Paolo Cavallini <cavallini@faunalia.it>:

Hi all.
The GRASS plugin does not have a maintainer since long. We at Faunalia
have done some smaller fixes, and financed, together with others, some
more bugfixing, through[0].
This situation is not ideal: without regular maintenance, bugs creep in,
and eventually major problems come out. Currently we have several
serious issues on vectors in Windows. It is therefore important that
someone fixes this, in order GRASS will remain fully usable from QGIS,
on all operating systems.
I'm therefore asking all the serious GRASS-QGIS users to step up and
give a hand, with either developer time or money. You are free not to do
it, but if you do it the future of this important tool will be bright
and reliable.
All the best.
--
http://www.faunalia.it/pc

[0]http://www.qgis.org/wiki/Bugs

_______________________________________________
grass-user mailing list
grass-user@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-user

_______________________________________________
grass-user mailing list
grass-user@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-user