GFOSS - Free Software GIS at your fingertips

OGR vector data tips and tricks

2008-06-28T14:31:00.005+02:00

Get vector map extent
You can easily grep the map extent of a vector map (bounding box):
ogrinfo /cdrom/ITALY_GC.SHP ITALY_GC | grep Extent
Extent: (9.299460, 43.787362) - (13.911350, 47.070188)

Merge of two SHAPE files
Merge of two SHAPE files 'file1.shp' and 'file2.shp' into a new file 'file_merged.shp' is performed like this:
ogr2ogr file_merged.shp file1.shp
ogr2ogr -update -append file_merged.shp file2.shp -nln file_merged file2

The second command is opening file_merged.shp in update mode, and trying to find existing layers and append the features being copied. The -nln option sets the name of the layer to be copied to.

Vector map reprojection
We reproject from the source projection (as defined in .prj file) to WGS84/LL:
ogr2ogr vmap0rd_ll.shp -t_srs "EPSG:4326" vmap0rd.shp

If the .prj file is missing, you can use the 'epsg_tr.py' utility to create it if you know the EPSG code:
epsg_tr.py -wkt 4326 > cities.prj

Reproject to current GRASS location projection:
ogr2ogr -t_srs "`g.proj -wf`" polbnda_italy_GB_ovest.shp polbnda_italy_LL.shp

Cut out a piece of a vector map
Use spatial query extents: -spat xmin ymin xmax ymax (W S E N)
ogr2ogr ARC_BZ.shp -spat 10 45 13 47 ARC.shp

Get VMAP0 metadata info
ogrinfo -ro gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr
ogrinfo -ro gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr | grep bnd
ogrinfo -ro gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr 'polbnda@bnd(*)_area'
ogrinfo -ro gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0eur/vmaplv0/eurnasia 'roadl@trans(*)_line'

MAP0: Extract spatial subregion, reproject from NAD83 to WGS84
# coordinate order: W S E N
ogr2ogr -spat 19.95035 -26.94755 29.42989 -17.72624 -t_srs 'EPSG:4326' \
polbnda_botswana.shp gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr \
'polbnda@bnd(*)_area'

OGR and SQL
Sample 'where' statements (use -sql for PostgreSQL driver):
# -where 'fac_id in (195,196)'
# -where 'fac_id = 195'
ogrinfo -ro -where 'fac_id in (195,196)' \
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr 'polbnda@bnd(*)_area'

Find out the Countries VMAP0 coding
ogdi_info -u gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr \
-l 'polbnda@bnd(*)_area' -f area | grep Botswana
or read the VMAP0 Military specs, page 75pp

Extract Botswana, reproject on the fly from NAD83 to WGS84, store as SHAPE:
ogr2ogr -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -where "na2 = 'BC'" polbnda_botswana.shp \
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0soa/vmaplv0/soamafr 'polbnda@bnd(*)_area'

Extract Germany, reproject on the fly from NAD83 to WGS84, store as SHAPE:
ogr2ogr -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -where "na2 = 'GM'" polbnda_germany.shp
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0eur/vmaplv0/eurnasia 'polbnda@bnd(*)_area'
ogrinfo -summary polbnda_germany.shp polbnda_germany | grep Extent
# Extent: (5.865639, 47.275776) - (15.039889, 55.055637)
# W S E N

VMAP0 Contour lines for Germany:
ogr2ogr -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -spat 5.865639 47.275776 15.039889 55.055637 \
contour_lines.shp \
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0eur/vmaplv0/eurnasia 'contourl@elev(*)_line'

VMAP0 elevation spots (points) for Germany:
ogr2ogr -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -spat 5.865639 47.275776 15.039889 55.055637 \
elevation_spots.shp \
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0eur/vmaplv0/eurnasia 'elevp@elev(*)_point'

VMAP0 lakes of Trentino province in Italy
ogr2ogr -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -where "na2 = 'IT'" \
-spat 10.340029 45.261888 10.98727 45.98993 \
lakes_italy.shp \
gltp:/vrf/grass0/warmerdam/v0eur/vmaplv0/eurnasia 'inwatera@hydro(*)_area'

Connect OGR and PostgreSQL/PostGIS
ogrinfo PG:'host=grass.itc.it user=postgres dbname=ogc_simple'
ogr2ogr out.shape PG:'host=grass.itc.it user=postgres dbname=ogc_simple' lake_geom

GRASS 6 and OGR
Convert GRASS 6 vector map to SHAPE (needs GDAL-OGR-GRASS plugin):
# -nln is "new layer name" for the result:
ogr2ogr archsites.shp grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT/vector/archsites/head 1 \
-nln archsites

Using WKT files with ogr2ogr
The definition is in ESRI WKT format. If you save it to a text file called out.wkt you can do the following in a translation to reproject input latlong points to this coordinate system:
ogr2ogr -s_srs WGS84 -t_srs ESRI::out.wkt out_dir indatasource

Most comand line options for GDAL/OGR tools that accept a coordinate system will allow you to give the name of a file containing WKT. And if you prefix the filename with ESRI:: the library will interprete the WKT as being ESRI WKT and convert to "standard" format accordingly. The -s_srs switch is assigning a source coordinate system to your input data (in case it didn't have this properly defined already), and the -t_srs is defining a target coordinate system to reproject to.

TIGER files in OGR
# linear features:
ogr2ogr tiger_lines.shp tgr46081.rt1 CompleteChain

# area features:
export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages
tigerpoly.py tgr46081.rt1 tiger_area.shp

OGR CSV driver: easily indicate column types
You can now write a little csv help file to indicate the columns types to OGR. It works as follow :
Suppose you have a foobar.csv file that looks like this:
"ID","X","Y","AREA","NAME"
"1","1023.5","243.56","675","FOOBAR"
...

Now write a foobar.csvt file like this one:
"Integer","Real","Real","Integer","String"
The driver will then use the types you specified for the csv columns. The types recognized are Integer, Real and String, DateTime, and Date.

Convert KML to CSV (WKT)
First find layers:
ogrinfo -so myfile.kml

Then convert KML to CSV:
ogr2ogr -f CSV out.csv myfile.kml -sql "select *,OGR_GEOM_WKT from myfilelayer"
cat out.csv

Or use the cool online converter: http://geoconverter.hsr.ch

GDAL raster data tips and tricks

2008-06-28T13:57:00.003+02:00

Reading GRASS data through GDAL/OGR support

Example 1: We write out a GRASS raster map to GeoTIFF -- this format
includes the coordinates within the file's metadata:

gdal_translate -of Gtiff /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish/PERMANENT/cellhd/soils soilmap.tif

ogr2ogr roadsmap.shp /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish/PERMANENT/vector/roads/head

Fast image display with tiling
If you want fast access you might want to try converting e.g. a BIL files to a tiled TIFF, and build overviews. You can build overviews for BIL too, but it can't be directly tiled:

# add -co "PROFILE=BASELINE" for TIF/TFW
gdal_translate source_bil global30.tif -co "TILED=YES" -co "TFW=YES" -co "PROFILE=BASELINE"
gdaladdo global30.tif 2 4 8 16

GDAL performance problem?
GDAL_CACHEMAX is normally a number of megabytes (default is 10 or so). So something like:
gdal_translate -of GTIFF -co TILED=YES --config GDAL_CACHEMAX 120 madison_1f_01.jpg madison_1f_01.tif
would use a 120MB cache.

GDAL and 1 bit maps
With a trick you can get those:
gdal_merge.py -co NBITS=1 -o dst.tif src.tif

Generate 8 bit maps for Mapserver
gdal_translate -scale in.tif out.tif
Note: As of MapServer 4.4 support has been added for classifying non-8bit raster inputs

Greyscale conversion
A "proper" conversion would involve a colorspace transformation on the RGB image into IHS or something like that, and then taking the intensity. GRASS can do things like that.

Generate an OGC WKT (SRS)
In WKT the ellipsoid is described by two parameters: the semi-major axis and the inverse flattening. For a sphere the flattening is 0 and so the inverse flattening is infinity.

# in the GDAL source code:
cd apps
make testepsg
./testepsg '+proj=lcc +lat_1=35 +lat_2=65 +lat_0=52 +lon_0=10 +x_0=4000000 +y_0=2800000 +ellps=GRS80 +units=m'
Validate Succeeds.
WKT[+proj=lcc +lat_1=35 +lat_2=65 +lat_0=52 +lon_0=10 +x_0=4000000 +y_0=2800000 +ellps=GRS80 +units=m] =
PROJCS["unnamed",
GEOGCS["GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)",
DATUM["unknown",
SPHEROID["GRS80",6378137,298.257222101]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]],
PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic_2SP"],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_1",35],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_2",65],
PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",52],
PARAMETER["central_meridian",10],
PARAMETER["false_easting",4000000],
PARAMETER["false_northing",2800000],
UNIT["Meter",1]]

Simplified WKT[+proj=lcc +lat_1=35 +lat_2=65 +lat_0=52 +lon_0=10 +x_0=4000000 +y_0=2800000 +ellps=GRS80 +units=m] =
PROJCS["unnamed",
GEOGCS["GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)",
DATUM["unknown",
[..]

Extracting spatial subset (subregion)
W N E S
gdal_translate -of GTiff -projwin 636861 5152686 745617 5054047.5 \
p192r28_5t19920809_nn1.tif test1_utm.tif

Fixing broken projection/datum info for raster data
gdal_translate -of HFA -a_srs epsg:32735 /cdrom/173072lsat.img \
173072lsat_fixed.img

# or, using a WKT file
gdal_translate -of HFA -a_srs file.prj /cdrom/173072lsat.img \
173072lsat_fixed.img

Merge various import maps, re-project on the fly and extract spatial subset according to current GRASS region
eval `g.region -g`
gdalwarp -te $w $s $e $n *.TIF \
srtm_cgiar3_italy_north_LL.tif

Export to (limited) TIFF readers such as ArcView, or ImageMagick
Many tools have trouble reading multi-band TIFFs with "band interleaving", the GDAL output default. Best is to use the INTERLEAVE=PIXEL creation option. Just add to the gdal_translate command line:
-co INTERLEAVE=PIXEL

Inserting metadata (metadata tags)
gdal_translate -outsize 37.5% 37.5% \
-mo TIFFTAG_XRESOLUTION=300 -mo TIFFTAG_YRESOLUTION=300 \
in.tif out.tif

Raster map reprojection (warping)
gdalwarp -t_srs '+init=epsg:26591 +towgs84=-225,-65,9' test1.tif \
test1_gb.tif

Reprojecting external map to current GRASS location externally
gdalwarp -t_srs "`g.proj -wf`" aster.tif aster_tmerc.tif

Cut out region of interest with gdalwarp (in target coords)
Add to command line:
-te W S E N <-- damn order, differs from -projwin!!

Merging many small adjacent DEMs into one big map (A)
This needs GDAL compiled with Python and numpy installed:
# if not installed in standard site-packages directory
export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages
gdal_merge.py -v -o spearfishdem.tif -n "-32768" d*.tif

Merging many small adjacent DEMs into one big map (B)
Even easier, just use gdalwarp:
gdalwarp C_1mX1m/dtm*.tif big.tif
Or just a few tiles:
gdalwarp C_1mX1m/dtm0010[4-5]* big_selection.tif

Merge various map/bands into a RGB composite
gdal_merge.py -of HFA -separate band1.img band2.img band3.img -o out.img

GDAL gdalwarp interpolation comments
Which method -rn, rb, -rc or -rcs should one use for DEM and which for data like e.g. Landsat TM reprojecting?

-tps: Enable use of thin plate spline transformer based on available GCPs.
-rn: Use nearest neighbour resampling (default, fastest algorithm, worst interpolation quality).
-rb: Use bilinear resampling.
-rc: Use cubic resampling.
-rcs: Use cubic spline resampling (slowest algorithm).

FrankW suggests:
I would suggest -rb for DEMs, and one of the cubic kernels for landsat data. Of course, there are various factors that you should take into account. Using -rb (bilinear) for the DEM will perform local averaging of the nearby pixel values in the source. This give reasonable results without introducing any risky "overshoot" effects you might see with cubic that could be disturbing for analysis or visualization in a DEM. The cubic should in theory do better at preserving edges and general visual crispness than using bilinar or nearest neighbour. However, if you are wanting to do analysis with the landsat (such as multispectral classification) I would suggest just using -rn (nearest neighbour) so as to avoid causing odd effects to the spectral values.
Nobody can't tell you what method should be used in your case. Generally speaking, in the case of upsampling spline and cubic interpolators are more suitable (-rcs and -rc). In the case of downsampling and the same resolution it is completely up to you what method looks better. Just try them all and select the one which is most appropriate for you.

Geocoding with 'gdal_translate'
FrankW suggests:
As far as I know there is not on-screen method for doing this, but it certainly isn't too difficult with a little bit of semi-manual work. Open two OpenEV views, one with the unreferenced image, one with the geo-reference base you want to use. Move your cursor over the non-referenced one (let's call it image1), record (read: write down!) the pixel x,y values. Then look at the same location in image2. Write down the geocoordinate for the pixel. You should have four numbers for each location you want to pin the image to. And so on and so on. Then use gdal_translate to translate image1.tif to image1_georefd.tif but adding the -GCP parameter for each set of coordinates. Like so...

gdal_translate -gcp 1 1 500000 5000000 \
-gcp 200 400 550000 5250000 image1.tif \
image1_geo.tif

Reading HDF ASTER
gdalinfo pg-PR1B0000-2002031402_100_001

To select a channel and warp to UTM (or whatever is inside):
gdalwarp HDF4_SDS:ASTER_L1B:"pg-PR1B0000-2002031402_100_001":2 aster_2.tif
gdalinfo aster_2.tif

GDAL/OGR 1.5.2 released

2008-06-06T19:57:00.000+02:00

A new bugfix release of GDAL/OGR (now at V1.5.2) was released today. This stable branch bug fix release fixes 37 issues in various drivers.

Impressive GRASS GIS Web site statistics

2008-06-04T22:25:00.005+02:00

Just to update you on the GRASS Web statistics development, here the grass.osgeo.org statistics (remember, we have MANY mirror sites):

Month Unique Number Pages Hits Bandwidth
visitors of
visits
Jan 2008 39223 74088 291166 715946 101.23 GB
Feb 2008 38984 74043 218314 623770 107.09 GB
Mar 2008 40674 73389 223666 621816 107.04 GB
Apr 2008 5490 15702 135134 403726 220.87 GB
May 2008 20613 104556 912263 2242942 1442.31 GB

(this includes of course search engine traffic)

It appears that many visitors came back in May who downloaded the long awaited GRASS 6.3.0 release from 23 Apr 2008.

Some outstanding hits for May (views, only grass.osgeo.org):
10095 /grass63/binary/mswindows/native/
3271 /grass63/binary/mswindows/native/WinGRASS-6.3.0-Setup.exe

This points out of obvious need for a portable, in this case also MS-Windows compliant GIS which GRASS 6.3.0 now is! Fetch native winGRASS with installer or GRASS for MacOSX or GRASS for Linux or ...

d.vect: support for z height (geometry) colors added

2008-05-24T00:26:00.000+02:00

After getting mad with Lidar points colorizing which till now
required a DB table with GRASSRGB attributes, I have
modified d.vect to support colors directly from z height (geometry).
Works for 3D points, lines (eg, 3D contours) and 3D polygons
(eg delaunay triangles):

# Spearfish:
g.region rast=elevation.10m
r.random elevation.10m n=5000 vector=random3d -d
d.mon x0
# display as black points
d.vect random3d
# display 3D points colorized according to z height
d.vect -z random3d zcol=gyr

# 3D contour lines
r.contour elevation.10m out=contour20m step=20
d.vect -z contour20m zcol=gyr

# generate 3D triangles
v.delaunay random3d out=random3d_del
# display 3D polygons colorized according to z height
d.vect -z random3d_del type=area zcol=gyr

Enjoy,
Markus

Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)

2008-04-26T16:47:00.000+02:00

Another nice recent OSGeo discussion: Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)?

Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library

2008-04-26T16:45:00.000+02:00

GRASS, QGIS and others are in the need of their own map printing tools for high quality output but these projects should not start from scratch. There is a wealth of underlying code already in Mapserver, Mapguide etc which could be re-used in the terms of their respective licenses and certainly of programming language compatibility. A joint OSGeo Cartographic Library comes to mind.

See also the ongoing related discussion!

GRASS GIS releases version 6.3.0

2008-04-24T18:05:00.002+02:00

GRASS GIS releases version 6.3.0
23 April 2008
http://grass.osgeo.org

GRASS 6.3.0 is a "technology preview" release, the first beta on the path to GRASS 6.4-stable, and also marks the start of work on GRASS 7. As such GRASS 6.3.0 is not intended to be a stable release with ongoing support, but after five months of quality-assurance review users can be confident to use this version for their day to day work, indeed due to the open development model many already do.

This release brings hundreds of new module features, supported data formats, and language translations, as well as a number of exciting enhancements to the GIS. A prototype of the new wxPython user interface is debuted, and for the the first since its inception with a port from the VAX 11/780 in 1983, GRASS will run on a non-UNIX based platform: MS-Windows. This is currently still in an experimental state and we hope that widespread testing of 6.3.0 will mean the 6.4 release of WinGRASS will be fully functional and robust. Existing users will be happy to know that these new features do not disrupt the base GIS which remains as solid as ever and fully backwards compatible with earlier GRASS 6.0 and GRASS 6.2 releases.

Several infrastructure changes accompany this release with the project becoming a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). This includes a new home for the website, the Wiki help system, source code repository, community add-on module repository, integrated bug tracking system, and formal membership for the project in a non-profit legal entity. We hope that these changes will guarantee that the GRASS community will be well supported and vibrant well into the future.

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for spatial modeling, visualization of both raster and vector data, geospatial data management and analysis, processing of satellite and aerial imagery, and production of sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS combines powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines into a single integrated software package.

The GRASS GIS project is developed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (the GPL) by volunteers the world over. GRASS differs from many other GIS software packages used in the professional world in that it is developed and distributed by users for users, mostly on a volunteer basis, in the open, and is given away for free. Emphasis is placed on interoperability and unlimited access to data as well as on software flexibility and evolution rate. The source code is freely available allowing for immediate customization, examination of the underlying algorithms, addition of new features, and fast bug fixing.

GRASS is currently used around the world in academic and commercial settings as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies.

Software download at http://grass.osgeo.org/download/ and numerous mirror sites.

Full story at http://grass.osgeo.org/announces/announce_grass630.html

Feature Comparison of Open Source Desktop GIS Software

2008-03-20T16:53:00.000+01:00

A very detailed and interesting comparison of FOSS GIS for desktop has been compiled by Stefan Steiniger:

http://www.spatialserver.net/osgis/

Incontro per la promozione del Software Libero nelle Pubbliche Amministrazioni

2008-02-27T09:27:00.000+01:00

27 Febbraio 2008

Trento Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Via S. Croce, 77

La Fondazione Bruno Kessler è lieta di annunciare l’incontro: ''SI PUÒ FARE - Software Libero nelle Pubbliche Amministrazioni” , organizzato nell'ambito del progetto E-society della Provincia Autonoma di Trento, in collaborazione con il consorzio dei Comuni Trentini.

Siete invitati a portare il contributo della vostra presenza alla giornata, che metterà a confronto esperti internazionali con i temi dell’operare quotidiano della Pubblica Amministrazione, delle imprese e del mondo della formazione.

Saranno affrontate questioni relative ai formati dei dati, alle licenze d'uso, ai concetti di standard, interoperabilità e accessibilità, anche in relazione alla formulazione di bandi pubblici di fornitura. Ampio spazio sara` dedicato all'illustrazione e alla discussione di iniziative e progetti a carattere locale.

Programma
9:00 Apertura dei lavori

Introduzione del Presidente della Fondazione Bruno Kessler, ANDREA ZANOTTI
Saluto del Presidente del Consorzio dei Comuni Trentini, RENZO ANDERLE

9:15 Interventi

Progetto E-Society: Linee guida in materia di interoperabilità dei sistemi informatici e di Software Open Source, GIANLUCA SALVATORI, Assessore Ricerca e Innovazione Provincia autonoma di Trento.
Questionario Interoperabilità, ARIANNA DEMOZZI, Ufficio Statistica, Provincia Autonoma di Trento.
La questione dei formati aperti e gli standard, HUGO LEITER, Consorzio dei Comuni della Provincia autonoma di Bolzano.

10:45 Pausa caffè --- dimostrazioni
11:15 Interventi

Caso di studio: L'Ospedale Classificato di San Pancrazio, MICHELE LANZA
Caso di Studio: Comune di Trento, ROBERTO RESOLI e GIACOMO FIORONI
Licenze d'uso e acquisizione di Software Libero, MARCO CIURCINA, Studio Legale.it
Caso di Studio: Comune di Predazzo, ALBERTO FELICETTI

13:00 Pausa Pranzo
14:30 Interventi

Caso di studio: Comune di Riva del Garda, GIACOMO CENINI
Software Libero e Pubblica Amministrazione, CRISTHOPHER GABRIEL, Truelite, Srl.
Strumenti Open Source per l'interoperabilità fra pubbliche amministrazioni: un'esperienza nell'ambito socio sanitario, MARCO PISTORE , Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

16:00 Pausa caffè --- dimostrazioni
16:30 Interventi

Caso di studio: Comune di Storo, STEFANO BERTUZZI e GIOVANNI BERTI
Caso di studio: Software Libero e didattica, VINCENZO D'ANDREA, Università di Trento.
La comunità trentina del Software Libero: Linux Trent, DIAOLIN (Giuliano Natali).
CENTROS -- il Centro di Competenza per il Software Open Source
BRUNO CAPRILE, Fondazione Bruno Kessler

17:30 Chiusura dei lavori

Alla giornata parteciperanno, con loro dimostrativi, le seguenti imprese:
AXIA Studio -- http://www.axiastudio.it
MPA Solutions -- http://www.mpasol.it
OpenContent -- http://www.opencontent.it
OPEN IT -- http://www.openit.it
Posit SC-- http://www.posit.it
Wildix -- http://www.wildix.com
Organizzazione : Cristina Moretto, moretto@fbk.eu --Tel. +39 0461 314520 Fax +39 0461 314591
Ulteriori informazioni sull'incontro http://centros.fbk.eu

2008-02-19T22:27:00.000+01:00

A fifth release candidate of GRASS 6.3.0 is now available:

Source code download:
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass63/source/grass-6.3.0RC5.tar.gz

An initial announcement has been drafted at
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.3.0RC5-News

Key fixes include improved portability for MS-Windows (native support), several module fixes, and especially the introduction of a new, Python based portable graphical user interface which includes a new vector digitizer.

About GRASS GIS:
Commonly referred to as GRASS, this is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS is currently used in academic and commercial settings around the world, as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. GRASS is official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.

Web site: http://grass.osgeo.org/

New official OSGeo projects: GDAL, GRASS GIS and FDO

2008-02-08T21:40:00.000+01:00

Today, at the OSGeo board meeting the graduation of the GDAL, GRASS GIS and FDO projects from incubation was approved. The Open Source Geospatial Foundation has been created to support and build the highest-quality open source geospatial software. The foundation's goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development of community-led projects. All OSGeo projects are undergoing an incubation process to ensure that projects that are able to become official part of OSGeo. The criteria are:

have a successfully operating open and collaborative development community
have clear intellectual properties oversight of the code base of the project
adopt the OSGeo principles and operating principles.

Projects are mentored through the incubation process, eventually the incubation committee is verifying if the project is ready for full status. The OSGeo Board of Directors accepts or rejects a project's graduation from the incubator. Upon graduation, a member of the project's PMC is selected to report to the foundation board periodically on project status.

FOSS4G Proceedings Now Available - OSGeo Journal Volume 3

2007-12-29T18:50:00.000+01:00

Tyler Mitchell, Executive Director of OSGeo reports:

The OSGeo Journal team is pleased to announce the availability of Volume 3. This volume of the Journal is dedicated to publishing the proceedings from the FOSS4G 2007 conference held in September. 14 different papers, representing over 35 authors were contributed. They cover a wide range of Integration, Development, Topical Interest and Case Study material.

You can access the Journal as a print-ready PDF or as individual PDF articles from:
http://www.osgeo.org/journal/volume3

Our next volume will be delayed until the first quarter of 2008. If you are interested in submitting articles, please add your name to:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Journal_Volume_4

Enjoy the articles and best wishes for the New Year!

GRASS GIS releases version 6.2.3

2007-11-29T18:32:00.000+01:00

27 November 2007
http://grass.osgeo.org

The development team is happy to announce that a new bugfix version of GRASS GIS has been released today. This release fixes a number of bugs discovered in the 6.2.2 source code. It is primarily for stability purposes and adds minimal new features. Besides bug fixes it also includes a number of new message translations and updates for the help pages and projection database.

Highlights include further maturation of the GRASS 6 GUI, vector, and database code. Some improvements have been backported from the GRASS 6.3 development branch where new development continues at a strong pace of approximately one code commit every hour, including major work on an all new cross-platform wxPython GUI and a native MS Windows port (from 6.3.0 onwards).

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) combining powerful raster, vector, remote sensing and and geospatial processing engines into a single integrated software suite. GRASS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated 4D presentation graphics and hardcopy maps.

GRASS is currently used around the world in academic and commercial settings as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. It runs on a variety of popular hardware platforms and is Free open-source software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

GRASS is a proposed founding project of the new Open Source Geospatial Foundation. In support of the movement towards consolidation in the open source geospatial software world, GRASS is tightly integrated with the latest GDAL/OGR libraries. This enables access to an extensive range of raster and vector formats, including OGC-conformal Simple Features. GRASS also makes use of the highly regarded PROJ.4 software library with support for most known map projections and the easy definition of new and rare map projections via custom parameterization. Strong links are maintained with the QuantumGIS and R Statistics projects with integrated GRASS toolkits available for both.

Software download at http://grass.osgeo.org/download/ and numerous
mirror sites.

Full story at http://grass.osgeo.org/announces/announce_grass623.html

New GRASS Book published: Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach

2007-11-25T17:07:00.000+01:00

The new edition of Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach is now available! With this third edition, we enter the new era of GRASS 6, the first release that includes substantial new code developed by the International GRASS Development Team. The dramatic growth in open source software libraries has made GRASS 6 development more efficient, and has enhanced GRASS interoperability with a wide range of open source and proprietary geospatial tools. The book is based on GRASS 6.3.

Thoroughly updated with material related to GRASS6, the third edition includes new sections on attribute database management and SQL support, vector networks analysis, lidar data processing and new graphical user interfaces. All chapters are updated with numerous practical examples using the first release of a comprehensive, state-of-the-art geospatial data set. This new OSGeo Educational data set along with additional material can be downloaded from http://www.grassbook.org/

GRASS GIS 6.3.0RC2 released

2007-11-20T12:51:00.000+01:00

A second release candidate of GRASS 6.3.0 is now available:

http://grass.itc.it/grass63/source/grass-6.3.0RC2.tar.gz

An initial announcement has been drafted at
http://grass.itc.it/announces/announce_grass630.html
(state April 2007, further fixes need to be merged in from
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_6.3_Feature_Plan
RC1 and RC2)

Key fixes include improved portability for MS-Windows (native support), hundreds of fixes, TclTk based portable graphical interface and much new functionality.

Release candidate management at
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_6.3_Feature_Plan

Please test, test, test...

Thanks to all contributors!

Markus

winGRASS 6.3.0RC1 and QGIS 0.9.0 now available

2007-10-28T10:28:00.000+01:00

A MS-Windows native binary of the current 6.3.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available at:
http://geog-pc40.ulb.ac.be/grass/wingrass/wingrass63RC1.zip
Read the README for installation, known issues and other information. This version no longer requires a n installation of Cygwin.

The QGIS team announces the release of QGIS 0.9.0 (the package for MS-Windows contains GRASS 6.3.0RC1). The QGIS team offers also packages for Linux and MacOSX.

First release candidate of GRASS 6.3.0 now available

2007-10-24T00:40:00.000+02:00

A first release candidate of GRASS 6.3.0 is now available:

http://grass.itc.it/grass63/source/
-> grass-6.3.0RC1.tar.gz

An initial announcement has been drafted at
http://grass.itc.it/announces/announce_grass630.html
(state April 2007, further fixes need to be merged in)

Key fixes include improved portability for MS-Windows
(native support), hundreds of fixes, TclTk based
portable graphical interface and much new functionality.

Release candidate management at
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_6.3_Feature_Plan

Please test, test, test...

GRASS GIS: Vector network analysis significantly easier now

2007-08-03T17:45:00.000+02:00

Also getting mad to connect your vector points to the graph? Stuff like "node is unreachable"? Same thing here, till last week. In GRASS 6.3 (still CVS), the v.net tool was extended to easily connect nodes to a graph. Just specify the vector network map and the nodes map along with a distance threshold to only connect in a reasonable way.

Screenshot examples for GRASS vector networking can be seen here: travelling salesman analysis, Steiner Trees, and Iso-distances. Enjoy.

Community based software development: The GRASS GIS project

2007-04-23T21:36:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow I'll give a talk at University of Trento about the question why free software development works. Focus will be on GRASS, a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, spatial modeling, and visualization. The project has an outstanding history as it was originally started a military project, but in the public domain. With the advent of Internet and related network based development tools a community was formed. Nowadays, both users and developers are spread over the globe and manage to develop this software with low administrational overhead and a good communication culture. This seminar reviews the technical and social aspects of this Free GIS project.

You can get the seminar slides here.

OSGeo Celebrates 1st Anniversary

2007-02-12T22:15:00.001+01:00

Tyler Mitchell, OSGeo's Executive Director, illustrates in a recent posting the many highlights from the first year of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Read more at http://www.osgeo.org/tyler/

OSGeo Celebrates 1st Anniversary

2007-02-12T22:15:00.000+01:00

Tyler Mitchell, OSGeo's Executive Director, illustrates in a recent posting the many highlights from the first year of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Read more at http://www.osgeo.org/tyler/

First combined GRASS-News / OSGeo-News volume published

2006-12-20T22:14:00.000+01:00

The GRASS-News editors and OSGeo Promotion and Visibility Committee announce the first combined GRASS-News / OSGeo-News volume. You can find the full pdf (5.3 MB) as well as PDFs of individual articles on the GRASS webpage:
http://grass.itc.it/newsletter/index.php
or directly via:
http://www.osgeo.org/content/news/news_archive/GRASS_OSGeo_News_vol4.pdf

A first edition of OSGeo-News will be published in 2007 with interesting articles covering various topics of OpenSource projects. Please visit http://www.osgeo.org in the next couple of weeks to find more detailed information how to submit articles.

GRASS GIS releases version 6.2.1

2006-12-12T22:38:00.000+01:00

GRASS 6.2.1 is a new stable release which fixes several bugs discovered in the 6.2.0 source code. This release is solely for stability purposes and adds no new features. Besides bug fixes it also includes a number of new message translations, updates for the help pages, and will better handle errors caused by missing or incorrectly installed support software. It also introduces a new 3D raster module which was left out of the last release due to time constraints.

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for spatial modeling, visualization of both raster and vector data, geospatial data management and analysis, processing of satellite and aerial imagery, and production of sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS combines powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines into a single integrated software package.

The GRASS GIS project is developed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (the GPL) by volunteers the world over. GRASS differs from many other GIS software packages used in the professional world in that it is developed and distributed by users for users, mostly on a volunteer basis, in the open, and is given away for free. Emphasis is placed on interoperability and unlimited access to data as well as on software flexibility and evolution rate. The source code is freely available allowing for immediate customization, examination of the underlying algorithms, addition of new features, and fast bug fixing.

GRASS is currently used around the world in academic and commercial settings as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies.

Software download at http://grass.itc.it/download/ and numerous mirror sites.

Full story at http://grass.itc.it/announces/announce_grass621.html

FWTools 1.1.0 for Linux and Win32 published

2006-11-25T16:20:00.000+01:00

Frank Warmerdam has published the new FWTools 1.1.0 binaries for linux and win32. FWTools includes OpenEV, GDAL, MapServer, PROJ.4 and OGDI as well as some supporting components. Basic changes are in the Linux version which now includes the addition of PostgreSQL support in OGR, and SOS Server support in MapServer. This release also includes the new, experimental, PDS (Planetary Data) format support. Download from:

http://www.gdal.org/dl/fwtools/FWTools110.exe
http://www.gdal.org/dl/fwtools/FWTools-linux-1.1.0.tar.gz