[GRASS-announce] GRASS GIS 6.4.0 released
Markus Neteler
neteler at osgeo.org
Tue Sep 7 18:38:08 EDT 2010
*Press Release
The GRASS Development Team announces* GRASS GIS 6.4.0 released
We are pleased to announce the release of GRASS GIS
6.4.0<http://grass.osgeo.org/>,
the first in the new line of 6.4 stable releases. As a stable release 6.4
will enjoy long-term support. The next release (6.4.1) will introduce a few
new features which are still undergoing final testing, but after that all
further 6.4 releases will be bugfix-only. Due to our highly conservative
stabilization policy this is the first official version of GRASS to
introduce new features since October 2006 and supersedes the previous stable
line of GRASS 6.2. As such the floodgates are open and there are many new
features to explore and many new structural improvements to be found in the
software.
GRASS 6.4 brings a number of exciting enhancements to the GIS. Our new
*wxPython
graphical user interface* (wxGUI) is debuted, Python is now a fully
supported scripting language, and for the first time since its inception
with a port from the VAX 11/780 in 1983, GRASS will now run natively on a
non-UNIX based platform: MS-Windows! In addition to bringing the software to
a host of new users, the ability to run GRASS on any common computer
platform furthers our goal of open access to the software. We hope you will
enjoy the ability to use this program on the systems that are most
convenient to you and your work.
Due to the freshness of *WinGrass* there may still be a few rough edges yet
to discover, but after more than a year of dedicated testing and
quality-assurance review we are very pleased with the results. Users can be
confident to use this version for their day to day work, indeed due to the
open development model many already do. Existing UNIX and Mac 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 6.2 releases. The venerable Tcl/Tk GUIs are also still available if
you prefer to use them.
The GRASS software including over 400 built-in analysis modules and 100
community supplied add-on modules and toolboxes can be downloaded for free
from the main GRASS website at http://grass.osgeo.org, or from many local
mirrors worldwide. In addition to the extensive documentation which comes
with the software, our Wiki help system
<http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki>contains a wealth of user supplied tips
and tricks, tutorials, and guides.
Since 6.4 entered the testing phase work has begun on GRASS 7 and is
progressing rapidly, including many new wxGUI improvements and tools which
we hope to bring over for the upcoming 6.4.1 release.
About GRASS GIS The *Geographic Resources Analysis Support System*, commonly
referred to as GRASS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) providing
powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines in 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 presentation graphics and
hardcopy maps. GRASS has now been translated into twenty languages and
supports a huge array of data formats.
GRASS is a founding member of The Open Source Geospatial
Foundation<http://www.osgeo.org/>(OSGeo), a non-profit legal entity
which has enjoyed extraordinary growth.
We expect that this formal infrastructure will guarantee that the GRASS
community will be well supported and vibrant far into the future.
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 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>.
Users are encouraged to study, customize, extend, improve, and (if
necessary) diagnose and repair the inner workings of any part of the
program. We believe that scientific progress depends on the reproducibility
of results, which in turn depends on the unhindered ability of the user to
know, evaluate, double-check, and learn from all algorithms and
methodologies used in the process of their work.
Screenshots
- Screenshots <http://grass.osgeo.org/screenshots/index.php> of GRASS in
action
Platforms supported by GRASS
GNU/Linux, Mac OS X/Darwin, Microsoft Windows (native using MinGW or with
full UNIX support via Cygwin), Sun Solaris (SPARC/Intel), Silicon Graphics
Irix, HP-UX, DEC-Alpha, AIX, the BSD family, iPAQ/Linux and other UNIX
compliant platforms. GRASS runs on both 32 and 64 bit systems with large
data file (>2GB) support for most key modules.
Software download/CDROM
- http://grass.osgeo.org <http://grass.osgeo.org/download/index.php>
- http://grass.ibiblio.org <http://grass.ibiblio.org/download/index.php>
- numerous mirror sites <http://grass.osgeo.org/mirrors.php>
- GRASS on CDROM/DVD <http://grass.osgeo.org/download/cdrom.php>
The new source code is available now and binary packages for major
operating systems will be published shortly.
For details on GRASS software capabilities please refer to:
http://grass.osgeo.org/intro/general.php, and the Wiki collaborative help
system <http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki>.
What's new in GRASS 6.4.0 (selected improvements from the nearly 9,000
updates to the source code)
- Source code quality/libraries:
- Many internal adjustments needed for native MS-Windows support, for
example safely handling spaces in file names.
- Programmer's Manual <http://grass.osgeo.org/programming6/>:
continued Doxygen integration and automated generation into PDF and HTML
formats. Publicly available for download and perusal.
- Improved policies for code submission specified in the SUBMITTING
files for documentation, Python, Tcl/Tk, and shell scripts
- New Python scripting language library containing many helper
functions
- All modules: --quiet and --verbose message modes
- All modules: --script flag generates boilerplate for shell scripts
with parser and GUI support
- Batch mode for launching GRASS for non-interactive processing tasks
- DBMI: SQL parser extended (support for DROP COLUMN, ASC/DESC keyword
in ORDER BY clause, etc.)
- Partial differential equations library with OpenMP multi-processor
support
- Major clean-up of the display architecture (libraries and drivers):
the drivers no longer maintain a palette; all colors are now specified
directly as R/G/B values
- The "default" datum transformation parameters are now first in the
list instead of last
- Ability to create new locations using EPSG codes with the
*g.proj*module
- Message translation (i18N): many new translated messages, new
languages including Vietnamese and Arabic
- Documentation/man pages: various fixes and improvements (more
examples added, including graphics, improved style, new
introductory pages)
- Documentation: various terminology issues fixed and terms unified
- Symbols: A number of new icons, support for symbol rotation
- Graphical User Interface (GUI):
- *g.gui*: New frontend command to launch GUI sessions
- *wxPython GUI*:
- Complete GUI rewrite in
Python/wxWidgets<http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/WxGUI>
- *gis.m Tcl/Tk GUI*:
- GIS manager extended with mouse placement of text and scale bars
and menu updates
- Updated Tcl/Tk profile and georectification GUI tools
- New interactive command console with output window
- New interfaces for interactive raster reclassification, raster
recoding, custom raster color rules, and vector reclassification
- New animation tool to display raster map series as an animation
- Improved startup screen and interface, including searchable EPSG
codes list and better custom datum support
- *NVIZ*: Major revamp of interface; output directly to MPEG or other
FFmpeg supported formats
- *QGIS integration*: GRASS toolbox extended, available from Quantum
GIS <http://www.qgis.org/>
- Drivers:
- *DBF driver*: extended column type support
- *HTMLMAP display driver*: NEW - Prepares clickable HTML image map
templates (port from GRASS 5)
- *PostScript display driver*: NEW - Renders display directly into a
PostScript or Encapsulated PostScript file
- *Cairo display driver*: NEW - Renders display directly into a number
of image formats using the Cairo
<http://www.cairographics.org/>rendering engine
- New and major updates for modules and scripts since GRASS 6.2.3:
- *db.dropcol*: NEW - Drops a column from selected attribute table
- *db.droptable*: NEW - Drops an attribute table
- *db.in.ogr*: NEW - Imports attribute tables in various formats
- *db.login*: Support for interactive password entry (invisible
passwords)
- *db.out.ogr*: NEW - Exports attribute tables into various formats
- *d.barscale*: North arrow for lat/lon locations
- *d.out.file*: Expanded to use the Cairo and PostScript display
drivers to allow export to ps, eps, svg, and pdf formats
- *d.path*: Support for use from GUI and non-interactive mode
- *d.rast.edit*: Rewritten in Tcl/Tk
- *d.shadedmap*: NEW - Drapes a semi-transparent raster over a shaded
relief map
- *d.text*, *d.font*: Updated to accept TrueType fonts and maintain a
database of system fonts
- *g.dirseps*: NEW - Internal utility for converting directory
characters (MS-Windows)
- *g.extension*: NEW - Utility for downloading and installing Add-on
modules
- *g.findetc*: NEW - Internal utility for locating support files
- *g.gui*: NEW - Launches a GRASS graphical user interface (GUI)
session
- *g.message*: NEW - Internal utility for printing quiet and verbose
messages in scripts
- *g.mkfontcap*: NEW - Internal utility for generating a list of
available system fonts
- *g.mremove*: Support for use from GUI
- *i.atcorr*: NEW - Performs atmospheric correction using the 6S
algorithm
- *i.landsat.rgb*: Vast speed improvement
- *ps.map*: Various improvements including new map border control,
rotated and scaled symbols, and allowing geogrid from lat/lon locations
- *r3.gwflow*: NEW - Models transient, confined groundwater flow in
three dimensions
- *r3.stats*: NEW - Generates volume statistics for raster3d maps
- *r3.univar*: NEW - Calculates univariate statistics from the cells
of a 3D raster map
- *r.bilinear*: This module has been replaced by r.resamp.interp
- *r.category*: NEW - Manages raster map category values and labels
(replaces r.cats)
- *r.colors*: Support for equalized histogram, reversed,
logarithmically scaled, rules-from-file, and more
- *r.gwflow*: NEW - Models transient, confined groundwater flow in two
dimensions
- *r.in.wms*: Various fixes and more robust when dealing with flaky
WMS servers
- *r.in.xyz*: Support for extended statistics
- *r.le suite*: Various fixes and modernization
- *r.li suite*: NEW - Advanced toolset for multiscale analysis of
landscape structure.
Including single and multi-processor enabled modules: r.li.cwed,
r.li.dominance, r.li.edgedensity, r.li.mpa, r.li.mps, r.li.padcv,
r.li.padrange, r.li.padsd, r.li.patchdensity, r.li.patchnum,
r.li.richness,
r.li.setup, r.li.shannon, r.li.shape, and r.li.simpson
- *r.mfilter.fp*: NEW - Raster map custom matrix filter (floating
point version)
- *r.out.gdal*: New C implementation replaces shell script
version, *region
sensitive* with color export ability
- *r.out.xyz*: NEW - Exports a raster map to a text file as x,y,z
values based on cell centers
- *r.profile*: Report data outside the current region as invalid
- *r.proj*: Replaced with an improved version
- *r.resamp.interp*: NEW - Resamples raster map layers to a finer grid
using interpolation
- *r.resamp.stats*: NEW - Resamples raster map layers to a coarser
grid using aggregation
- *r.support*: Enhanced control of meta-data
- *r.support.stats*: NEW - Support module which updates raster map
statistics
- *r.univar*: Support for extended statistics
- *r.watershed*: Vast speed improvement
- *r.what.color*: NEW - Queries colors for a raster map layer
- *v.db.dropcol*: NEW - Drops a column from the attribute table
connected to a given vector map
- *v.db.join*: NEW - Allows to join a table to a vector map table
- *v.db.renamecol*: NEW - Renames a column in the attribute table
connected to a given vector map
- *v.db.univar*: NEW - Calculates univariate statistics on selected
table column for a vector map
- *v.digit* (Tcl/Tk): Rewritten for use without X11
- *v.digit* (wxPython): NEW - All new vector map digitizer rewritten
in wxPython
- *v.edit*: NEW - Edits a vector map, allows adding, deleting and
modifying selected vector features
- *v.generalize*: NEW - Generalization of vector features using a
number of smoothing techniques
- *v.in.db*: More efficient implementation of the where= option
- *v.in.wfs*: NEW - Import GetFeatures from WFS format
- *v.net.visibility*: NEW - Visibility graph construction
- *v.out.svg*: NEW - Exports a vector map to SVG format
- *v.proj*: Better handling of z coordinates in 3-D vectors
- *v.support*: NEW - Updates vector map metadata
- *v.surf.idw*, *v.surf.bspline*, and *v.surf.rst*: Work with massive
datasets imported without topology (e.g. LIDAR)
- *v.to.3d*: NEW - Performs transformation of 2D vector features to 3D
A more detailed description of changes can be found in the previous
announcements of the GRASS
6.3<http://grass.osgeo.org/announces/announce_grass630.html>development
preview release and the GRASS
6.4.0 release candidate<https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/WikiStart#Releases>series.
For a comprehensive list of changes see the 6.4
ChangeLog<http://grass.osgeo.org/grass64/source/ChangeLog_6.4.0.gz>file.
For a complete list of commands available in GRASS 6.4.0 see the online
manuals <http://grass.osgeo.org/grass64/manuals/html64_user/index.html> and
the GRASS 6.4 module
list<http://grass.osgeo.org/gdp/grassmanuals/grass64_module_list.pdf>.
*We are always looking for testers, code developers, and technical writers
to help us <http://grass.osgeo.org/devel/index.php> maintain and accelerate
the development cycle.* The GRASS GIS project is developed under the terms
of the GNU General Public License
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>(the GPL) in
the open <http://grass.osgeo.org/devel/index.php> by
volunteers<http://grass.osgeo.org/community/index.php>the world
over <http://mapserver.gdf-hannover.de/grassusers/map.phtml>. 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.
Release history:
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC1<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC1-News>released
23 Dec 2008
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC2<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC2-News>released
12 Jan 2009
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC3<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC3-News>released
26 Jan 2009
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC4<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC4-News>released
12 Apr 2009
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC5<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC5-News>released
9 Jun 2009
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC6<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC6-News>released
20 Mar 2010
- GRASS GIS 6.4.0RC7<http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0RC7-News>released
27 Aug 2010
- *GRASS GIS 6.4.0 released 3 September 2010* (see also technical
announcement <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/6.4.0-News>)
------------------------------
Short version <http://grass.osgeo.org/announces/abstract_grass640.txt>
------------------------------
GRASS Development Team <http://grass.osgeo.org/community/team.php>
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