Towards a stable open source GIS Status and

Towards a stable open source GIS: Status and future directions in GRASS development presented at Second Italian GRASS Users Meeting, University of Trento, Feb. 1 -2 2001 Markus Neteler University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Outline of Presentation Summary - GRASS 5 Development in 2000 Future Directions - Development in 2001 Discussion University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Import/Export section " " " improved data Import: SHAPE with optional topology correction, E 00, Map. Info, GDAL new data Export: SHAPE, E 00 (no proj. info yet), MIF „libgrassio“: Standalone GRASS Library suitable for use by non-GRASS applications wishing to read and write GRASS databases (planned: LGPL license) University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Source code changes " " Established centralized reviewed source code server (CVS) > 3000 CVS-commits: bugfixes, improvements, updates last year, especially: improved platform independence " all UNIX flavors like Linux, Solaris, CRAY, . . . " Mac OS X " Windows/NT/Cygnus University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development. . . Source code changes " " " new library "gmath": wrapper to support LAPACK/BLAS routines and to provide stable numerical algorithms for GRASS modules autoconf implemented: „make“ process more GNU like, but still based on GRASS Gmakefiles geodetic datum shift support: new Coord. Conv library, in parallel PROJ 4 was updated University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Legal issues " GRASS 5. 0: 1. 5 million lines of C source code under GPL " removal of copyright-restricted routines " removal of LZW: FP maps and G 3 D volume compression changed to zlib University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Graphical User Interface/XDRIVER development " " " XDRIVER: modified to use Sockets/IPC instead of fifos Module short descriptions in XML --interface-description for the forthcoming automated GUI-builder GRASS Bridge DTD for OSSIM (Open Source Software Image Map) http: //www. ossim. org/ University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Graphical User Interface/XDRIVER development Example for XML/Python GUI-Builder (Intevation Gmb. H 2000): " Improvement for „tcltkgrass“ " part of OSSIM " other GUIs? v. in. shape --interface-description | python src/gui/python/grassgui. py University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development Graphical User Interface/XDRIVER development Example for GUI programming on Apple Mac OS X (image by Andy Agena, U. S. ) University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

Status of GRASS 5. 0 Development New (Geo)-Statistics Interface R-interface (Bivand 2000) raster vector sites data analysis voxel forthcoming R Memory limit removed XGOBI: interface for data visualization and exploration University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 " New version number scheme " " " GRASS 5. even. x: stable versions GRASS 5. odd. x: development versions Two major development phases " Phase 1: restricted " Phase 2: open University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 GRASS 5. 1 Phase 1 Milestone 1 - Status: restricted " " new directory layout new automake Makefile system: replacement for GRASS Gmakefiles build shared libraries: reduces memory requirements separation of GRASS database I/O routines from GISLIB and implementation of „libgrassio“ University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 GRASS 5. 1 Phase 1 Milestone 2 - Status: restricted " implementation of new GRASS vector library: " DBMS support, " 2. 5 D (3 D optionally), 64 bit compliance implementation of GRASS-built-in DBMS: allows multiple attributes management implement vector segmentation to speed up topology build process on large vector files University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 GRASS 5. 1 Phase 1 Milestone 3 - Status: restricted " update all vector modules " implement basic raster/sites/. . . modules with restrictions " GRASS modularization: possible through shares libraries implement XML-based packaging scheme (module classifications) from unsplitted source code At this time GRASS 5. 1 should become usable. University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 GRASS 5. 1 Phase 2 Milestone 1 - Status: open " implement full graphical startup with session manager, " allow to build locations on the fly from imported maps, " allow location enlargement on the fly " implement sites management through DBMS " implement NULL support in multiple attribute sites lists University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology OSSIM-Bridge (Bernhard Reiter, Intevation Gmb. H 2000)

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 GRASS 5. 1 Phase 2 Milestone 2 - Status: open " upgrade new vector library to full 3 D support Milestone 3 - Status: open " implement Free. Type font engine to support any font Milestone 4 - Status: open " GRASS internationalization (multiple languages) University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology

GRASS 5. 1 Development in 2001 Conclusion " All participants benefit from Open Source concept " GRASS 5. 1 will become powerful and flexible " GRASS is open to new ideas and improvements Join us! University of Hannover Inst. of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology