What is GRASS?
•A general purpose, raster/vector Geographic Information System…
•…combined with integrated image processing and data visualization subsystems.
More specifically:
•geospatial data management and analysis,
•image processing,
•graphics/maps production,
•spatial modeling, and
•visualization
About GRASS
•Originally developed by the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories between 1982-1995
•Primarily for scientific research: academic, commercial, government (e.g. NASA, US National Park Service, U.S. Census Bureau, USGS etc.)
•Raster & vector processing, data in SQL database, version 6.0, runs on Unix, Windows, MAC
Development of GRASS
•Community-based development:•by US agencies (core components, module
integration), universities, and private companies•by any user
•Since 1997 worldwide network of developers
•Several million $ worth of development effort
Graphical user interfaces
GRASS GIS manager
Quantum GIS (Linux/Unix only)Raster, vector, database formats
JAVA GRASSServer: spatial processing engineClient: Graphical User Interface
Typically used in remote access/production environment
Disadvantages
•Installation difficult
•Limited user friendliness
•Need substantial computer/GIS experience to use
Advantages
•Extensive functionality, a leading GIS package
•Large and influential user/development community
•Freely available, open source
Examples for use
•Geography
•Landscape ecology
•Urban planning
•Biology
•Geophysics
•Hydrology• Groundwater Flow
Modeling
•Vector network analysis
•Geostatistics
•Raster 3D Volume