[GRASSLIST:9059] Re: ArcView vs GRASS

[Thomas Adams]

Dylan,

Thanks for the comments! I agree that it would be worthwhile to 
summarize the salient (and edited) points someplace. I'd like to try out 
the GRASS-GMT code you and Hamish are working on. BTW, the maps on my 
office website (http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/ohrfc) are created with GMT.

Tom


Dylan Beaudette wrote:

> On Nov 14, 2005, at 4:30 AM, Thomas Adams wrote:
>
>> Dear GRASS Community:
>>
>> This discussion is far too interesting to pass making some comments. 
>> First off, I could not agree more with most (if not all) comments. 
>> The price/performance comparison alone makes GRASS the easy winner 
>> and the user support is outrageously good. I work for aU.S. federal 
>> agency and admittedly the GRASS community is small by comparison to 
>> ESRI. That's an irony, of course, since GRASS was developed by the 
>> U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. What is also ironic is that there is a 
>> strong analogy between ESRI/GRASS and the MS-Windows/Intel versus 
>> Apple Macintosh/Linux world — but with an interesting twist. The 
>> reason many have identified for the groundswell of GIS users using 
>> ESRI software is ease of use with the GUI which purportedly is not 
>> available with GRASS. Some comments have shown this is not quite the 
>> case.
>>
>
> Interesting times indeed.
>
>> The lack of cross-platform support with ESRI software is a huge issue 
>> with many and has caused significant problems in my agency due to the 
>> fact that our real-time operational environment is Linux; we would 
>> like to have GIS intimately intertwined with our operational 
>> environment at each workstation (having multiple monitors) but this 
>> really crowds the desktop space not to mention that one would have to 
>> use simultaneously a MS-Windows environment on one computer and Linux 
>> on the other — what a mess!! So, I have been gently pushing GRASS 
>> when the opportunity presents itself.
>>
>
> Here in the small Land, Air, and Water Resources Dept. of the 
> University of Ca in Davis I have been confronted with the same 
> problems. Many of my collegaues and I use Linux and MacOS, yet GIS in 
> integrated deeply into our research (soil science). I became a GRASS 
> user out of both curiosity AND neccessity. Fortunately, with every 
> ESRI-related mess that my collegues have to deal with, one more comes 
> and asks about GRASS. Thos last screen shots from Radim were quite 
> excellent, and I am looking forward to trying out the GRASS->QGIS 
> plugin system.
>
>> For much of what we do at U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) River 
>> Forecast Centers involves handling large amounts of GIS data 
>> repetitively. This means that scripts must be used to handle the 
>> analysis of these data. It is quite easy in GRASS to write simple 
>> shell, Perl, or whatever scripts to handle the data analysis 
>> requirements we have.
>>
>> I should also add the importance of GRASS/QGIS interoperability and 
>> interoperability with R, gstat, GMT, etc. Combined, these make an 
>> incredibly powerful GIS environment that easily rivals the ESRI 
>> world. ESRI still holds the marketing edge with the perception of 
>> creating stunning maps, which captures the attention of end-users. 
>> Probably a stronger tie between GMT and GRASS would help.
>>
>>
>
> Good point. As with GRASS, I made myself learn how to use GMT out of 
> neccessity: I needed high quality cartographic output. There have been 
> numerous efforts to integrate GRASS and GMT, including: shape2gmt, 
> r.out.gmt.py (David F.), r.out.gmt (Hamish and I), as well as 2 new 
> modules that are currently only on paper v.out.gmt (Hamish and I), and 
> possibly g.out.gmt (complete GMT script creation- Hamish and I).
>
> I am enjoying this thread quite a bit. Perhaps it would be a good idea 
> to summarize the important points, and put it up somewhere. Maybe 
> adjusting the tone a bit so as not to be too abrasive, :) .
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- 
> Dylan Beaudette
> Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
> University of California at Davis
> 530.754.7341
>


-- 
Thomas E Adams
National Weather Service
Ohio River Forecast Center
1901 South State Route 134
Wilmington, OH 45177

EMAIL:	thomas.adams at noaa.gov

VOICE:	937-383-0528
FAX:	937-383-0033