Thanks Wolfgang.
For what it's worth, ArcGIS needs to have many things separately installed
(some of which you must buy for quite a bit of money) to have full
functionality.
I very much agree with you about the installation. It's getting much better
than it used to be (when everyone had to run the command-line installer
script for binaries AFTER installing things like GDAL), but we need more
help in maintaining binaries.
Because GRASS has evolved through contributions of many people over many
years, it still has some inconsistencies (e.g., input vs. map, although
sometimes this is sensible). As more developers begin to help with the
program, a lot of this is getting cleaned up. I've seen enormous changes
over the past 2 years. Your input as a user (and maybe helping work on GRASS
eventually) is welcome.
With respect to the numbering, odd numbers are development versions/betas
and even numbers are stable versions. 6.0 was released a little over a year
ago and we're now working towards a new stable release with lots of
improvements.
Stay tuned.
Cheers
Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University
phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
From: Wolfgang <wollez@gmx.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:45:36 +0200
To: <GRASSLIST@baylor.edu>
Cc: <grass5@grass.itc.it>
Subject: [GRASSLIST:867] Re: New GRASS introHi,
and I still thought that the 6.1 is a beta and you are talking about a
6.2? I think what the most important thing is which has to be improved
for a beginner is the installation of grass. I'm running on cygwin and I
did not dare to try anything else which is provided by the cygwin
installer (at least that there is some version at all is a great help).You are right, as a new user I had problems to understand what a
location/mapset is and how to create them. What me helped was a step by
step tutorial (sorry I'm only civil engineer who uses Grass for private
purposes).I'm sometimes still confused that some commands need instead of "input"
a "map" at least this should be aliased.An other thing I realized quite late is that many options are only
working when Grass is compiled with the right commands, but when you
have installed a binary version you hardly figure out which "plugins"
are working (mrsid in, ecw out, ...)But I'm not thinking bad of Grass at all! I only takes a lot of effort
to get into it. Now I can handle some functionality like importing maps,
reprojecting maps, joining maps, using r.resamp and also exporting them
quite well. For getting so far having a step by step manual helped a lot
(and also the mailing list).A final remark on the EPSG list. It seems that no all possibilities
(grids) are included and that (at least one) lacks the right false
northing. Also (when I under stand right) EPSG codes are available for
Datums and national meter grids (which need a datum).If you need a beta tester who can "simulate" a new user, then you can
always ask meCheers
WolfgangMichael Barton schrieb:
With the move toward releasing GRASS 6.2, it¹s time we had a new intro
to greet users starting GRASS.I¹d hoped to make something really spiffy, easy for first time users to
navigate without getting confused about GRASS jargon, but still quick
for experienced users. Alas, I haven¹t had the time to do all this
before the impending 6.2 feature freeze, but I did manage to update
things somewhat from the venerable, Spartan grey intro.I¹ve rearranged the items on the intro screen to distinguish different
functions, changed the descriptions to make it clearer that locations
are for projections and mapsets are where a ŒGIS¹ is stored, etc. I also
added a new button to create a projection location from a georeferenced
file (uses GDAL/OGR via g.proj). Finally, I added some color to the
intro. No I didn¹t make it green, but I did add a nice GRASS graphic.Many thanks to Markus who helped me get this committed to the cvs, where
it now resides for your geospatial enjoyment.I think the next step would be to replace the g.setproj terminal screen
for defining projections with a nicer GUI one based on g.proj. Another
thing would be to add a search function to the excellent EPSG codes
database.Cheers,
Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
Arizona State Universityphone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
