[GRASSLIST:9060] Re: ArcView vs GRASS

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Nov 14, 2005, at 10:43 AM, Thomas Adams wrote:

> 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
>

Hi,

Well if I can get my act together, we can expect an article or 2 in the 
coming GRASS newsletter.

Nice maps. Here is an example of a map done in GMT:

  http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/drupal/node/102


Cheers,

Dylan


>
> 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
>
>
--
Dylan Beaudette
Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341