[GRASS-user] [update of the training manual]

GRASS GRASS user
,
1

Is there some place on the web that discusses the differences between QGIS and Grass? I haven't done any extensive research on this but it appears that QGIS is more about display and a GUI, and perhaps windows compatibility. There seems to be a lot of overlap in functionality. My guess is that there are many relatively new users of open source GIS software that would like some discussion on why the two.

Thanks, Jerry

---- Original message ----

Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:25:49 +0100 (CET)
From: "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert@club.worldonline.be>
Subject: [GRASS-user] [Fwd: update of the training manual]
To: grassuser@grass.itc.it

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: update of the training manual
From: "Yann Chemin" <ychemin@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, December 16, 2006 06:52
To: "Natalya Medvedyeva" <natmead@gmail.com>
        "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert@club.worldonline.be>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

I have upgraded the training manual (correction from Maris and R2V +
shapefile export).

Works flawlessly on grass6.3cvs in linux (check the script), looking
forward to a new windows version readily installable...

http://rslultra.star.ait.ac.th/~yann/star/GMS_training.pdf
http://rslultra.star.ait.ac.th/~yann/star/GMS_training.odt

Cheers,
Yann

--
----

_______________________________________________
grassuser mailing list
grassuser@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grassuser

Gerald Nelson
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
office: 217-333-6465
cell: 217-390-7888
315 Mumford Hall
1301 W. Gregory
Urbana, IL 61801

2

QGIS started as a simple viewer for geodata. And that's really what it
still is: a simple-to-use geodata viewer with some editing capabilities.
That's what it was designed to be and that's what it can do really well.
QGIS does not have built-in capabilities for geodata processing and
analysis.

However, a while back, Radim Blazek, who was then a core developer of
the GRASS 6 system, decided to write a plugin for QGIS that would make
it possible to access GRASS functionality from within the QGIS GUI.

And that's what you get today, when you download a binary version of
QGIS for your platform: QGIS + GRASS 6 plus a plugin that makes using
GRASS from QGIS simple and fun.

And that's why you have the "overlap" ...

Hope this clears the fog,

best,

Benjamin

Gerald Nelson wrote:

Is there some place on the web that discusses the differences between QGIS and Grass? I haven't done any extensive research on this but it appears that QGIS is more about display and a GUI, and perhaps windows compatibility. There seems to be a lot of overlap in functionality. My guess is that there are many relatively new users of open source GIS software that would like some discussion on why the two.

Thanks, Jerry

---- Original message ----

Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:25:49 +0100 (CET)
From: "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert@club.worldonline.be>
Subject: [GRASS-user] [Fwd: update of the training manual]
To: grassuser@grass.itc.it

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: update of the training manual
From: "Yann Chemin" <ychemin@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, December 16, 2006 06:52
To: "Natalya Medvedyeva" <natmead@gmail.com>
        "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert@club.worldonline.be>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

I have upgraded the training manual (correction from Maris and R2V +
shapefile export).

Works flawlessly on grass6.3cvs in linux (check the script), looking
forward to a new windows version readily installable...

http://rslultra.star.ait.ac.th/~yann/star/GMS_training.pdf
http://rslultra.star.ait.ac.th/~yann/star/GMS_training.odt

Cheers,
Yann

--
----

_______________________________________________
grassuser mailing list
grassuser@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grassuser

Gerald Nelson
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
office: 217-333-6465
cell: 217-390-7888
315 Mumford Hall
1301 W. Gregory
Urbana, IL 61801

_______________________________________________
grassuser mailing list
grassuser@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grassuser

--
Benjamin Ducke, M.A.
Archäoinformatik
(Archaeoinformation Science)
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
(Inst. of Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology)
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6
D 24098 Kiel
Germany

Tel.: ++49 (0)431 880-3378 / -3379
Fax : ++49 (0)431 880-7300
www.uni-kiel.de/ufg

3

On 17/12/06 17:37, Gerald Nelson wrote:

Is there some place on the web that discusses the differences between
QGIS and Grass?

Not that I know of. Maybe the content of this mail could become the basis of a FAQ...

I haven't done any extensive research on this but it
appears that QGIS is more about display and a GUI, and perhaps
windows compatibility.

I don't know about the last point, but for the rest, you are correct. QGIS is mainly a viewer and map builder, although it also allows you to create new vector maps. In a certain way, it is more of an application framework which offers basic functionalities which you can then enhance through plugins.

One of such plugins is the GRASS plugin which gives you access to GRASS through QGIS, thus allowing you to use the somewhat easier interface of QGIS to access the power of GRASS. This plugin allows you to very easily build a custom interface to GRASS as you can chose the GRASS commands you want the user to see.

There seems to be a lot of overlap in
functionality.

There is not much overlap between "pure" QGIS and GRASS, except for basic operations such as zooming, panning, etc.

The GRASS plugin to QGIS integrates GRASS into the QGIS framework, so there is obviously a lot of overlap. :wink:

My guess is that there are many relatively new users
of open source GIS software that would like some discussion on why
the two.

The two are different programs, with different objectives and different histories.

GRASS is a very old GIS with very advanced features for raster and vector analysis. QGIS is a fairly new project (although already quite advanced) which in its basic state, as mentioned above, is mostly a viewer and map builder, but which can be enhanced through plugins, of which one is a plugin giving it access to the wonderful world of GRASS.

Actually, there regularly has been a debate within the GRASS community about whether we should abandon the development of a native GRASS GUI and rather maintain GRASS as a sort of library + command line modules and let the user then chose between other existing 'GUIs' such as QGIS, JGRASS, etc (without wanting to reduce these programs to simple GUIs).

The decision was made that GRASS should keep its own native GUI which in the current stable release is the tcltk-based GIS Manager and which in the future will be a wxpython-based GUI which is already in development.

I hope this answers you question.

Moritz