[GRASS-user] GTiff export and a General Inquiry

[Dylan Beaudette]

Hi Daniel,

On Monday 18 December 2006 14:11, Daniel Farnan wrote:
> Thanks, Jerry,
>
> is there more local (California) resources for GRASS and PostGIS (OS GIS)
> related learning?

Well, i know of a few. Brad, myself... certainly a couple others. I had tried 
to setup some sort of Davis GRASS user group -- but there just wasn't enough 
people to warrant a meeting... maybe there are now.

> I am bright, yet have some difficulty in putting so many diverse pieces
> together correctly with ease and grace (firm linux Debian set-up guidelines
> would be a help).

In terms of a debian-way for getting all of these pacakges working together... 
I know a couple of people on the list (hamish is one) have experience. I tend 
to compile all of my GIS toolset from source, so that I can stay on the 
bleeding edge. I use debian-unstable, but find that I cannot get 
recent-enough builds for GRASS, QGIS, R, and Postgresql. 

With a little help, compiling these from source is not too difficult. The real 
trick is locating the dependencies, and installing *those* with aptitude. I 
keep a relatively up-to-date set of notes for compiling GRASS here
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/drupal/node/123

...but the grass wiki is the authority.

> If there was a basic reference for set up and use of PostGIS it would also
> be helpful, especially as my experiemce with Postgres is recent and limited
> in scope.

The PostGIS website has a fairly decent set of instructions. I would be happy 
to post some of my notes if there is an interest. Currently I only have 
*usage* notes, specifically for the NCSS-USDA soil survey products:
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/drupal/node/335

> I have been working, not-unsuccessfully, with GRASS for about a year on a
> part-time basis; and have yet to be able to successfully work up the
> database to do more routine feature and attribute work, and am not yet able
> to setup properly with MapLab to work up in WMS.

If you were trained on ESRI stuff, then GRASS+postgresql can be a bit of a 
challenge. Please use this list, and the GRASS wiki as a mentor of sorts- 
there are no restrictions on what kind of GRASS-related questions you can ask 
here.

> If you are aware of local professionals who might act as tutors, I would be
> interested in inquiring - the package is so good and advanced it has been
> disheartening to be unable to get into it and work things up to see where I
> can take it (for my project).

Generally GRASS/postgis principles are conveyed through example, assumming 
some basic level of GIS skill. Reading up on basic GIS tasks + asking on this 
list can go a long way.

Cheers,

Dylan


-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341