[GRASS-dev] Re: [tlaronde: ticket #542: vector for GRASS 7]

[Helena Mitasova]

Thierry,

thanks for your feedback - I think Hamish has explained it well, so I  
just concur what he has to say:

On Dec 5, 2009, at 5:25 AM, Hamish wrote:

> thanks for providing your comments Thierry.
> I agree with a fair amount of what you say, specifically education is
> more work but far better than reinvention (poorly). there certainly is
> a lot of hidden wisdom in the grass code for us to learn from.
>
> a few minor points:
>
>> avoid the confusion between "lines" and "arcs" for example.
>
> please, "polyline" is much better than arc. for one thing the name-
> space is well and truly taken, for another it's the term the rendering
> library uses, and for a last point from a mathematical standpoint an
> arc to me is a pure curve not a broken line approximating a curved  
> line.
> (arguing semantics will always be a chore of picking the best from
> among imperfect terms)
>
>> merging the Sites as Points in the vector was, IMO, an error.

it was not done the way it should have been done, but the old sites
format would have been difficult to maintain and expand.
>
> both have their strengths and their weaknesses, but regardless of that
> it is done now and with minor extra-topological ugliness we can store
> massive point datasets in the current framework. it's not ideal, and
> we've lost users to eg PostGIS because of it, but this is not the
> trickiest problem we face so we'll see what future solutions introduce
> themselves.
>
>
>> Secondly, the introduction of 3D in vector is not perhaps a great  
>> idea
>> if you remember what a GIS is mainly for.
>
> important: s/is/has been/
> don't limit yourself by what others have done in the past.
> to me the interesting thing about grass is not what it can do, but
> what it could easily be extended to do.
>
> I work in the water which is inherently a 3D environment, I think I  
> can
> speak for all our geologic, atmospheric, archaeological, and so on
> refugees from other GIS when I say that the 3D support is a big reason
> we use GRASS.

same here - and it is not just the 3D points, we use 3D vector for  
buildings,
roads, rivers - it has been very useful. GRASS has been used for 3D  
even 4D
modeling for years,

Helena
>
>
> to me, the biggest software gap we have from a vector perspective  
> besdies
> the LiDAR problem is to get a mature non-encumbered  
> reimplimentation of
> the Triangle library out there to the world. (see nnbathy threads)
>
>
> regards,
> Hamish
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> grass-dev mailing list
> grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev