[GRASS5] re: Grass GUI

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
,
1

Grass is one of the few GIS systems that is 3D not only 3D raster but also 3D vector yet almost all of the interfaces being discussed or available such as Qgis, Thuban, Openve, Udig etc appear to be totally 2D (some people like to think 2.5D is 3D). The only one that is actually 3D is NVIZ and the last time tried to use it it was very good at 2.5D but the 3D part was lacking.

Although a display is not really a part of a true GIS it is likely the most important part of a GIS in our line of work (geophysics). We have to be able to display our end product graphically to the client and almost all of our work is now in 3D since as a geophysicist we usually try and determine what is below the ground.

We are now using Paraview (paraview.org)and Mayavi (mayavi.sourgeforge.net) for our display and again moving away from grass. Both of these programs are based on the VTK graphics libraries. We are also looking at TVTK from enthough (https://www.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/TVTK) mabey a Python wrapper for grass using packages such as these. This could also greatly extend the scientific part of grass.

So my main points are

1) Why is a 3D GIS even looking at 2D graphics (usually 3D packages can aslo do 2D or it can easily be added)

   2.

      There are 3D graphics libraries available like VTK, OpenDX can
      they not be used. What does NVIZ use is it totally based on OpenGL?

   3.

      A GUI appears to me to be jest a wrapper around good libraries so
      is what GUI to use that important with the exception that it
      should be myltiplatform.?

To me a big mistake I often see programmers make is they write software to work with todays or even yesterdays hardware/software. Remember you will never get your software working till tomorrows hardware is available.

In other words, unless there is something new out there, i do not see how to do 3D graphics without OpenGL. I have not seen a graphics card for years that does not a support it. Even most cheap cards with onboard video support OpenGL now.

The people at Grass are doing a great job and it has a real unique chance to get ahead of most major GIS systems think 3D all of the way don't stop half way. I think Nviz is doing a great job but we can do our work in linux which I prefer but we require a viewer on the windows platforms sorry but that is where our clients are.

Most of our clients do no care how we get there they only want a pretty picture or now 3D movie of the end product. So without good graphics and a GUI grass will forever linger in academia well mabey that is what the majority of people want?

Syd

--
///////////////////////////////
Syd Visser P.Geo
SJ Geophysics Ltd.
sydv@sjgeophysics.com
www.sjgeophysics.com

2

There are 3D graphics libraries available like VTK, OpenDX can
they not be used. What does NVIZ use is it totally based on OpenGL?

NVIZ is pretty much SGI GL rewritten in OpenGL (I think, others may
correct). Thus it depends on nothing fancy.

see the new r.out.vtk, r3.out.vtk modules if you want to export GRASS
maps to VTK based programs. (search the mailing lists for posts by
Soeren Gebbert, I'm not sure if everything is up to date in CVS yet)

see also *.out.pov, and r3.out.v5d for POVray and v5D exports.

We can't be everything today, but it is nice to be able to export to
other imaging software easily and without shame.. so thanks to Soeren
et al. for making this possible.

Hamish

3

The people at Grass are doing a great job and it has a real unique
chance to get ahead of most major GIS systems think 3D all of the way
don't stop half way. I think Nviz is doing a great job but we can do
our work in linux which I prefer but we require a viewer on the
windows platforms sorry but that is where our clients are.

Most of our clients do no care how we get there they only want a
pretty picture or now 3D movie of the end product. So without good
graphics and a GUI grass will forever linger in academia well mabey
that is what the majority of people want?

If someone wants to pay to have one written, then great. Otherwise you
will have a hard time convincing academics to write software for your
customers. As the developers are largely academics, for better or worse
the product gets tailored for their needs. It is simply a matter of
ability + motivation. You could always give Bob Covill lots of money and
see where that gets you...

I do appreciate the need though, A GRASS plugin for QGIS in windows will
help fill it (in 2D); as well as FWTools for windows with a GRASS plugin
for converting to other formats. I don't know about the state of 3D on
windows.

For Matlab support it wouldn't be too hard to extend r.out.mat to
r3.out.mat (probably 'r.out.mat -3'), but I have no plans to do so
currently. (also memory problems to address?)

Hamish

4

Syd,

I think your comments about visualization and 3D are right on the money.
AFAICT, GRASS is far ahead of the rest of the pack of GIS, in terms of its
abilities to work with true 3D (NVIZ has had some major improvements in the
last couple months, so you should take a look at it again.) We could (and
should) capitalize on that. I also agree with your comments about hardware
and looking to the future. The only caveat is that GRASS is important
globally, where hardware varies considerably.

Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton

From: Syd Visser <sydv@sjgeophysics.com>
Organization: SJ Geophysics Ltd.
Reply-To: <sydv@sjgeophysics.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:30:18 -0800
To: <grass5@grass.itc.it>
Subject: [GRASS5] re: Grass GUI

Grass is one of the few GIS systems that is 3D not only 3D raster but
also 3D vector yet almost all of the interfaces being discussed or
available such as Qgis, Thuban, Openve, Udig etc appear to be totally 2D
(some people like to think 2.5D is 3D). The only one that is actually 3D
is NVIZ and the last time tried to use it it was very good at 2.5D but
the 3D part was lacking.

Although a display is not really a part of a true GIS it is likely the
most important part of a GIS in our line of work (geophysics). We have
to be able to display our end product graphically to the client and
almost all of our work is now in 3D since as a geophysicist we usually
try and determine what is below the ground.

We are now using Paraview (paraview.org)and Mayavi
(mayavi.sourgeforge.net) for our display and again moving away from
grass. Both of these programs are based on the VTK graphics libraries.
We are also looking at TVTK from enthough
(https://www.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/TVTK) mabey a Python wrapper
for grass using packages such as these. This could also greatly extend
the scientific part of grass.

So my main points are

1) Why is a 3D GIS even looking at 2D graphics (usually 3D packages can
aslo do 2D or it can easily be added)

   2.

      There are 3D graphics libraries available like VTK, OpenDX can
      they not be used. What does NVIZ use is it totally based on OpenGL?

   3.

      A GUI appears to me to be jest a wrapper around good libraries so
      is what GUI to use that important with the exception that it
      should be myltiplatform.?

To me a big mistake I often see programmers make is they write software
to work with todays or even yesterdays hardware/software. Remember you
will never get your software working till tomorrows hardware is available.

In other words, unless there is something new out there, i do not see
how to do 3D graphics without OpenGL. I have not seen a graphics card
for years that does not a support it. Even most cheap cards with onboard
video support OpenGL now.

The people at Grass are doing a great job and it has a real unique
chance to get ahead of most major GIS systems think 3D all of the way
don't stop half way. I think Nviz is doing a great job but we can do our
work in linux which I prefer but we require a viewer on the windows
platforms sorry but that is where our clients are.

Most of our clients do no care how we get there they only want a pretty
picture or now 3D movie of the end product. So without good graphics and
a GUI grass will forever linger in academia well mabey that is what the
majority of people want?

Syd

--
///////////////////////////////
Syd Visser P.Geo
SJ Geophysics Ltd.
sydv@sjgeophysics.com
www.sjgeophysics.com