[GRASS-user] Scientific Comparison between GRASS and Proprietary Remote Sensing/GIS Software

[Jarosław Jasiewicz]

Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann napisał(a):

> Hello Firman,
>
> My colleague an I  just submitted a paper about a comparison between
> GRASS and ArcGIS, using morphometric maps as a base. In general terms,
> they both give similar results, except when there was an interpolation
> with clustered data (points clustered along streamlines but with
> clusters far from each other). In this case, GRASS produced a very
> nice result, while ArcGIS made a really bad interpolation.
>
> Other the one hand, I guess some things are easier to do in some
> proprietary software, most of them have better map-producing
> capabilities than GRASS and GRASS lacks some more interactive tools
> (like interactive histogram stretching, color table manipulation for
> vector maps etc).
>
> On the other hand, you can do things in GRASS you couldn't even think
> about in proprietary GIS. Consider how powerful r.mapcalc is, see the
> beauty of a NVIZ session (all my ArcGIS friends are impressed with
> NVIZ), or even how easy it is to adapt some piece of code to suit your
> needs (I had to do that, I needed larger neighborhoods than
> r.neighbors default maximum size - 25 - so I just changed in the code
> and recompiled).
>
> my two cents
>
> Carlos
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/9/07, Firman Hadi <firman.hadi at crs.itb.ac.id> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> One week ago I had a discussion with someone who is expert in remote
>> sensing.
>> It was a really nice discussion though we have a different perspective
>> in using software.
>> I prefer to use GRASS, because it's an open source software while he
>> prefer to use
>> proprietary software. He believed that GRASS can't do some tasks that
>> proprietary softwares do.
>> He thought that GRASS is not mature enough to be used. He asked me some
>> prove that the results from GRASS is the same with proprietary software.
>> For me, it will be better if I bring actual comparison between GRASS and
>> proprietary software, though maybe it will take some time.
>> Is there any link or arguments to give an accurate explanation for such
>> kind of people?
>> Thanks.
>>
>> -- 
>> Firman Hadi,
>> Center for Remote Sensing - ITB
>> Labtek IXC, 3rd Floor
>> Jl. Ganesha No. 10
>> Bandung - INDONESIA
>> http://crs.itb.ac.id
>> Blog: http://jalmiburung.wordpress.com
>>
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>>
>
>
Well, 'proprietary software' is not synonymus of ArcGIS
in general there is lot of less expensive proprietary software like for 
example Idrisi for which  (IMHO) grass is real alternative
So If  you need arguments there is: Open (and Free) software is very 
comparable with less expensive proprietary software

But I'll be rather carefull with comparing GRASS with High-End GIS 
software. That software created for big comercial projects, where speed, 
visualisation, and simpliyfy of using are most important, in Arc there 
are lot of facilities like  versioning, geodatabase, coverage with 
topology, advanced editing, symbology and so on, which power can be used 
only on really big group projects

Addationally, analitical tools in ArcGIS are not the best. The main 
assumption of arc is to create rather environment than complete 
solution. So there are lot of extension for Arc which are free or can be 
bought separetly