[GRASSLIST:7493] Re: First reactions

[Martin Wegmann]

Hello Ned, 

thanks for your commendations, critics, proposals. It is indeed very helpful 
to get to know the first impression because many users/developers are already 
used to command-line & certain structures of GRASS which are entirely 
incomprehensible for new users. 

On Thursday 07 July 2005 18:42, you wrote:
[...]
>I find
> it easier to run GRASS within Linux (on a Linux only computer) and that is
> the setup I am using. Most of our users, however, would not want to deal
> with Linux.

I totally agree! 
Installing GRASS on linux is quit easy, but for Windows an *.exe file is 
missing. I am not familiar with the software-build problems, but as far as I 
am aware of it, it is a license problem. Somebody has to pursue the exe-build 
program. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[...]
> Another drawback is that it is not possible to 
> simply start grass then open and immediately explore an image. If all image
> work was based on a geographically defined area this approach might be
> acceptable but for those instances (frequent for me) when you want to load
> an image and do some simple processing the whole database/location
> framework is a pain.[...]

> I expect this location/mapset restriction is the reason it is necessary to
> restart GRASS 3 times when geocoding a scanned map. There must be a more
> straightforward way to geocode images.
>
> If GRASS would allow you to start the application, click on File => Open
> and then have an image open in a viewer so a user could zoom, pan, read
> coordinates, change bands. the interest in GRASS would increase by a factor
> of 10 or more overnight. A user should not need to read a tutorial to
> simply display an image of their choice. I am convinced that this instant
> appeal is a critical hook to get more people interested in GRASS. 

Of course it is possible to enter a previously setup mapset and choose import 
a raster into a newly generated one. However I fancy your proposal that the 
user should be able to choose to look at the image first (r.in.gdal + d.mon 
x0 + d.rast XY) without entering a location/mapset followed by an "generate 
location/mapset"  for the respective raster. 

I don't know how easy it is to accomplish this "wish" but to zoom in and just 
select a subset for import might be very interesting as well. 

For other quick-looks tasks I would recommend QGIS. 

> I realize that much of the power of GRASS is accessible through the command
> line but for many people if this functionality is not available through an
> intuitive menu structure then it is effectively not available.

the d.m tcltk interface brings a pretty intuitive menu structure to GRASS 
(compared to the former one) but to produce real "eye candy" a e.g. QT4 UI 
project should be initialised.
Perhaps we should announce that we are looking for motivated OpenSource qt 
programmer. ,-)

> One feature that I think would be quite useful is to add a calculator GUI
> to the current map algebra option. The current r.mapcalculator work fine
> but in my experience a GUI that resembles a calculator is more intuitive to
> use.

Event though I am already used to r.mapcalc and love how it works, a 
calculator-like interface would lower the learning curve.

> All in all I think GRASS has come a long way and I expect that I will begin
> using it in some of our remote sensing training courses in the future.
> First I need to become more proficient and knowledgeable with what GRASS
> can do and how to efficiently accomplish a series of tasks.

Especially a recurring series of tasks is easily accomplished by GRASS using a 
script - just mail if I shall send you an example script. 

I think the most important thing GRASS needs are programmers who start helping 
on solving bugs, wishes -- hopefully GRASS will attract them as well. 

best regards, Martin


-- 
Martin Wegmann

DLR - German Aerospace Center
German Remote Sensing Data Center
@
Dept.of Geography
Remote Sensing and Biodiversity Unit
University of Wuerzburg
Am Hubland
97074 Würzburg

phone: +49-(0)931 - 888 4797
fax:   +49-(0)931 - 888 4961
http://www.biota-africa.org
http://www.biogis.de