[GRASS-user] UTM concepts

[Seb]

On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:58 +1300,
Brent Wood <b.wood at niwa.co.nz> wrote:

[...]

> This addresses my main (pretty much only!) gripe about GRASS. I suggest
> that projections, etc are simply metadata describing a dataset. As such,
> being forced to change all my data to one predefined projection/datum is
> a significant inconvenience, which has largely precluded my making any
> real use of GRASS.

Indeed this has been a difficulty that turned me away from GRASS some time
ago, but I do think that this restriction and burden is a price to pay for
a more consistent and orderly use of a GIS.  It has exposed some gaps in
my knowledge that were hidden (even from myself) when using other more
user-friendly software.  I feel that once I come to grips with these
hurdles, my experience will be much smoother afterwards, not to mention
an increased understanding of what I'm doing.

In fact this is a feature of many top-notch packages (usually free
software written by socially conscious developers).  The greatest need I
see from a user perspective is perhaps comprehensive documentation.  I
understand this can be a very daunting task, but one that deserves
contributions from all users, as a way to give back to the community.
Many developers have put so much effort writing the software that there
may not be enough energy/time left to write extensive documentation.


Cheers,

-- 
Seb