this bug's URL: http://intevation.de/rt/webrt?serial_num=4157
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Subject: Cartographic tools, display
..
This is a general statement so please read it entirely before rolling
your eyes. I have spent many years working for various GIS vendors and
I can tell you that in order for GRASS to have wide acceptance it must
improve four major areas.
No need for eyes to roll, genuinely given feedback is always welcome.
1) Integration. Integration, Integration.
GRASS must easly intergrated with other components such as a RDBMS
(POSTGIS).
This is partially a packaging issue, the DebianGIS team have been
doing a really great job along these lines. A lot of spatial stuff
"just works" now in Debian. The issues encountered and overcome by
the DebianGIS folk can only filter through & help other platforms.
At the code level, most of the glue is there & operational, it is
just the polish that is missing. That will come with time.
2) User training and support are virtually non-existant.
You can buy training, e.g.:
http://www.gdf-hannover.de/leistungen.php?id=3&lg=en
http://www.intevation.net/services/gis.en.html
Informal support via the mail lists is pretty good. Better than most
commercial support I ever had to deal with working as a professional
engineer.
2) Cartographic ability: layout, design and output are very poor with
GRASS and unless it improves it will never be generally accepted. This
has always been a problem and I know output is just a pretty picture
to some but it is a big factor to many. QGIS is not an intergrated
solution BTW.
ps.map is not exactly a user friendly interface, but you can create
publication quality graphics with it. The d.* modules are fine for
presentation graphics, and if you still aren't happy you can export
your data to the GMT cartography software^. GRASS is traditionally an
analysis package, not a cartography package and of course there is room
for improvement. QGIS is intergrated on Debian if you have the plugin
packages installed.
[^] http://169.237.35.250/~dylan/grass_user_group/#GMT_and_GRASS-overview
3) On the fly projections. Need I say more?
In GRASS 5.4 there are the d.viewproj modules donated by Beverly Wallace
of Lockheed Martin; screenshots attached. I encourage you to check it
out. grass-5.4.0/src.contrib/LM/viewproj
A keen soul could probably port this to GRASS 6 without much effort.
Hamish
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