SGI and d.mon iris trouble

Matthew_T_Mellon · January 23, 1996, 12:00pm

Dear kind GRASS users,

I've tried very hard not to bother you, but I've finally reached a dead
stop:
I'm using GRASS 4.1 with an SGI Iris Indigo R4000, 32mb RAM, 1gb hd (soon to be
5gb). I've been trying to use the "iris" driver for d.mon, and have several
questions:

* Why can't I select "iris" in the x-menu for d.mon, only from the grass shell?
(iris doesn't appear as a choice, only x0, x1 ... x6 or x7)

* Even when I do start iris from d.mon, I keep getting error messages when I
try to display raster maps (which display just fine on x0, etc.), such as:
        "too many raster maps open" or
        "too many cell file open" or
        "unable to open cell file" ...
and so forth, each time. Has anyone encountered this, and if so, a fix?

* Lastly, might I ask how one launches SG3D, and does it require the iris
monitor. (And does it display a 3D raster elevation map much better than the
d.3d does in the x0 monitor? I hope so...Not that d.3d is bad, but I just
hoped I'd get better viewing of my bad data on the SGI.

Thank you very much for any respones. I've been struggling to get our Geology
dept. set up with a GIS for over a year and a half. PLEASE, if anyone out
there is using Grass with SGI, and wouldn't mind an occasional question, please
contact me. I've learned a great deal about importing DEM's recently, and
might be able to offer some advice there (though at the moment, I have a small
problem with a mountain range ending exactly at 67deg.W, where the next DEM
starts)...

Finally, if anyone is using Grass in Geology, I'd love to talk sometime -- I'm
hoping that we will get up and running with some remote sensing work, and with
some structural applications. Our department also does a lot of work with
biogeochemistry and soils (Art Johnson), and I'd love to hear from any
ecologists out there. Personally, I'm working on beginning a large
paleoclimate study, incorporating paleotectonic maps and paleobotanical data
(and my current thesis project, clay mineral data).

Please reply directly, if at all possible. I can also read the list from the
GRASS page.

Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Matt Mellon

------------------------------------------
Matthew T. Mellon

Department of Geology
University of Pennsylvania
Room 251 Hayden Hall
240 S. 33rd St.
Philadelphia, PA
19104-6316

Bart_Cosyn · January 24, 1996, 12:00pm

Hi Matthew,

* Why can't I select "iris" in the x-menu for d.mon, only from the grass shel

l?

(iris doesn't appear as a choice, only x0, x1 ... x6 or x7)

xgrass is written for the X-motif environment and as the iris monitor
needs the typical DLG-capabilities of Silicon. Its just a question of
making xgrass multiplatform!

* Even when I do start iris from d.mon, I keep getting error messages when I
try to display raster maps (which display just fine on x0, etc.), such as:
      "too many raster maps open" or
      "too many cell file open" or
      "unable to open cell file" ...
and so forth, each time. Has anyone encountered this, and if so, a fix?

Maybe it has something to do with your number of colortables you load!
Does it happen always or only if you have other X windows open? Check
maybe also your locks in $GISBASE/locks. Check also the printcap file and
the files src/CMD/lists (check there the local file). Eventhough I do not
think it is due to these files.

* Lastly, might I ask how one launches SG3D, and does it require the iris
monitor. (And does it display a 3D raster elevation map much better than the
d.3d does in the x0 monitor? I hope so...Not that d.3d is bad, but I just
hoped I'd get better viewing of my bad data on the SGI.

You just start SG3d as you wrote it. It will ask interactively all the
needed input. Its only for silicon and uses monitors similar to the iris
monitor but not the one you uncommented in the monitorcap file. Be sure
that SG3d is in the bin directory of Grass or in $GISBASE/bin. In other
words be sure of the path. The binary is available on moon in
the incoming directory and the tutorial in
grass/grass4.1/documents/SG3d.tutorial.ps.Z
I any case its a great and handy interface to manipulate your 3d views!

Thank you very much for any respones. I've been struggling to get our Geolog

y

dept. set up with a GIS for over a year and a half. PLEASE, if anyone out
there is using Grass with SGI, and wouldn't mind an occasional question, plea

se

contact me.

We run grass on Indy machines running as well irix 5.2 and 5.3. Any case
I presume that questions (unimportant how trivial they "seems" to be) are
always interesting for the whole group.

Bart