Splus for GRASS

[informix at alla.pl.swf.usace.army.mil]

Marianna,

Many of us employ statistical packages such as Splus with GIS using scripts
and functions (as well as the sites to S utility in s.menu) to pass data or
bridging files back and forth. What is missing is concurrent seamless integration
of the two where operations in GRASS effect data objects and displays in Splus
and vice versa.  Another attractive element in a Splus-GRASS GUI would be
integration of Splus functionality with respect to all three types of GIS
data: point, vector, and raster (especially raster). Since many of us are
using maplayers that are linked to relational databases, it would be great if
the SQL query functionality of GIS/Relational Databases (with the multidimen-
sionality that brings to maplayers) was also understandable to Splus.

A number of the basic SPLUS data display/exploratory analysis tools including
histograms, bivariate plots, qqnorm plots, pairwise plots, and interactive
combinations of tools (spin and brush) would be invaluable in GRASS. I have
also found a need for multivariate analyses not available in GRASS including
factor, cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling and would like to be able
to spatially (geographically) assess clusters and factors.  Splus also has a
number of tools that are not handled well or at all in GRASS including sampling
assessment, time series analysis, imagery analysis (or at least graphical
display for some of the image processing tools in GRASS), and a host of other
spatial statistics and modeling capabilities that should be accessible to GIS
users.

Ishmael Williams
US Army Corps of Engineers
Ft. Worth District
ish at alla.pl.swf.usace.army.mil