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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Greetings,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Shortly after the Open Source Geospatial Conference in </span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Minneapolis</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> there was
talk of combining some of the capabilities of GRASS and </span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>. Is that
discussion continuing? Although I have a limited knowledge of these two
projects it seems like a great idea. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the
functionality of GRASS, the performance of </span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, and the
simple user interface of ImageLinker (or QGIS for that matter)? From Internet
searches I can see there was an effort to put together a GRASS/QT library but I
haven’t noticed any recent work on this project. That also sounds like a
good idea to me and I wonder why it didn’t get too far. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I remain frustrated with the lack of a decent, reasonably
full featured, easy to use, open source image processing package. I’m
frustrated because it seems like the components are out there but there is a
lack of synergy or something. Is anyone aware of someone working on this? The
demand is there – I hear it all of the time when we give our training
courses.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>To help put things into perspective here are some of my
thoughts on GRASS and </span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>. It would be
helpful to hear what other people think about these two packages and possibly
what could/should be done to improve them to make them more appealing to a
broad user community. This may be a long shot but I would very much like to
start a dialog that would lead to improving existing or creating a new image
processing-focused project. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>OSSIM</span></font></b><b><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'> (ImageLinker)</span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> is a high performance image
processing library and ImageLinker is the GUI application providing access to
the </span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> libraries. Although significant
progress is apparently being made with the </span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> libraries
there has been little progress on ImageLinker and associated documentation
since the summer of 2004. ImageLinker can do some task very well such as image
visualization and mosaicing a large number of images but “simple”
tasks like contrast enhancements are cumbersome and image classification is not
supported. A good deal of work needs to go into focusing on ImageLinker before
we could consider using this in our introductory remote sensing courses. I
expect that much of this would not be too difficult but adding other
capabilities such as image classification and vector capabilities would require
more time. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> has tremendous potential as a high
end image processing package but the key to success within our target audience
is to package it in a way so the user can easily access the necessary
functionality. The </span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OSSIM</span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> community is
primarily made up of developers although with more of a focus on ImageLinker or
a similar application this would become quite popular within the user community
as well.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>GRASS</span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>GRASS has, by far, the greatest set of capabilities of the
free and open source geospatial software I have been following. Although the
user interface for GRASS has evolved in recent years the underlying
architecture appears largely unchanged since the original version was released
about 20 years ago and it has become outdated. Adding a GUI helps but it is not
the solution. The two biggest complaints I hear about GRASS is that it does not
run well in the Windows environment and it is not user friendly or intuitive.
The show-stopper for most people, if they are able to install it, is that one
needs to read a manual simply to learn how to open an image. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The GRASS community is active and growing but with some
fundamental modifications the program could be made much more accessible and
the user community could quickly increase by a factor of 10 and I view that as
a good thing. At this point it is too cumbersome for us to use in our remote
sensing training courses. Although the functionality is there, most of our
students want to use something that is more intuitive and it needs to run well
on Windows and the other operating systems. Also, the entire
“Database” concept in GRASS is cumbersome for many people and
should be optional. Unless some changes are made I expect GRASS use will continue
to be limited to modelers and diehard image processing users who don’t
mind investing the time to learn how to use the program. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>That’s enough for now. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>All the best,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Ned</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>--</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Center for Biodiversity and Conservation</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>American</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> </span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Museum</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> of Natural
History</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Central Park</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> West @ </span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>79th St</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>New York</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
DEFANGED_STYLE='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, </span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>NY</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> </span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>10024</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>e-mail: </span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>horning@amnh.org</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>tel: 212-313-7947</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>fax: 212-769-5292</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Home office tel: 802-382-9080</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Web site: http://cbc.rs-gis.amnh.org/</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
9.0pt'> </span></font></p>
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