[GRASSLIST:1570] Potteries & PowerPC

[Quim Soler i Subils]

Hello everybody,

"Lyle E. Browning" wrote:
> 
> Not having worked outside the Mac environment for years and
> having mostly and thankfully forgotten the trials and
> tribulations of working out downloads and installations more 
> difficult than double clicking, I think I'm mostly up to
> speed on the GRASS/Mac issues. Indeed I was trying to run it
> directly on a G3 Powerbook with system 9.0.4 which the
> specs appeared to indicate might work. Now I know that Linux
> or similar is required. I am also told that 5.0b will run
> native on Mac System X. Hopefully that will work and I can
> avoid reformatting and partitioning my hard drive.

I am working on a iMac with Linux (YelloDogLinux) and I've also heard
that now it's possible to run Grass5 on MacOS X beta. If you are new on
Linux I think you should wait until the release of MacOS X this 24
March. I tell you that not only for the partitioning but because
sometimes you will spend more time repairing Linux than working on archaeology.

You will find more information at Andy Agena site:
http://homepage.mac.com/andya/osx_grass/
Thank you Andy!


> Is there a procedure in GRASS which allows bringing in
> points from the x,y series I already have with their codes
> and then querying the database and showing only those
> attributes one selects?

 
I'm also archaeologist and I manage a 29.000 Paleolithic artifacts
database (with x,y,z coordinates and a lot of codes). I do it with the
postgree SQL modules and GRASS 5. With them you can ask a SQL database
for all, a combination or only a class of objects and then GRASS
displays them on the monitor. After that, you can also select a point
and GRASS tell you what it is and where it is. Or you can display your
points over another map of your archaeological site. You can also set
different colors each class of archaeological object. It's really nice
and helps a lot.


To do it first you should have all your artifacts in a File Maker or
Excel database. Then you should export or save them as text. After that
with a SQL program (I  use the pgaccess graphical interface with
postgreeSQL database that came with YellowDogLinux) you must import all
these records saved as text. Then, with GRASS SQL interface modules you
can query your SQL database and GRASS displays the requested points.
With these SQL modules you can also save your query as a GRASS sites
map. I do it because it's useful to do more analysis after converting
them, for instance, in raster maps.

That works great for me but I am still learning. Ask more if you need.

Hope this helps,

Quim Soler i Subils
Laboratori d'Arqueologia
Universitat de Girona (Catalonia)