A beginner's question

[Malcolm Williamson]

> 
> 
> Dear netters:
> I am a beginner of GRASS.  I have installed GRASS binary and spearfish data
> and tey are running well. Now, I want to start my own work coverage.  The
> data I have is in GRASS ASCII format,i.e. an ASCII text with a 6-line header.
> I imported it using r.in.ascii command, and put it under 'spearfish'.  It 
> worked fine.  However, it doesn't work when I put it in a separate directory
> other than 'spearfish'.  I guess I have to make some kind of setup, beside
> g.region.  My question can be made more general: what is the general procedure
> to start a working coverage when I have the ASCII data ?
> 
You need to create a new Location. This is done by entering a new Location name
in the start-up screen that first appears when you start GRASS. The name of the
Mapset may be whatever you choose; a Mapset called "PERMANENT" is always 
generated automatically for each Location. The path of the Database needs to
be valid (i.e. new directories won't be created). After asking if you want to
create a new Location, GRASS prompts you with the following:

*To create a new LOCATION, you will need the following information:
*
*1. The coordinate system for the database
*        x,y (for imagery and other unreferenced data)
*        UTM
*        State Plane
*        Latitude-Longitude
*        other projection
*2. The zone for the database
*       (except for x,y and Latitude-Longitude databases)
*3. The coordinates of the area to become the default region
*   and the grid resolution of this region
*4. A short, one-line description or title for the location
*
*Do you have all this information for location <cache2> ? (y/n) 

The most important piece of information that is required of you is the 
coordinate system. The ascii data that you are trying to enter will have to be
in the same coordinate system, or will have to be transformed (a much more
complex issue!).


> I am also trying to running the NOAA calibrated global vegetation index data.
> First problem I have is that the header files get some unreconized symbols.,
> like ^M after copied from CD-ROM to my sparc.  The second problem is when 
> the NDVI filels are displayed they all look blank.  Anyone had similar
> problem, please give me some advice. 
> 
> Thank you very much for your time.
> 
First, the UNIX command "dos2unix" will probably get rid of the extra control
characters. Second, if you are not already doing it, you need to:

	g.region rast=filename
	d.erase

in order to set your region to your data!

Good luck!

-- 
Malcolm D. Williamson - Research Assistant       E-mail: malcolm at cast.uark.edu
Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies      Telephone: (501) 575-6159
Ozark Rm. 12                                        Fax: (501) 575-3846 
University of Arkansas              
Fayetteville, AR 72701