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

[Thomas.Adams at noaa.gov]

Jan & others,

I am in the process of 'selling' GRASS GIS to a large number of GIS experts within my agency in the U.S. next week. I am  preparing a presentation that focuses on our needs in hydrologic forecasting, which includes real-time data analysis and map production. At this point, my experience has been that anyone who has taken the time to give GRASS GIS a try, has been very impressed. In all of my discussions, I have not tried to say that GRASS can be a full replacement to, say, ArcGIS, but rather, to supplement ArcGIS. Part of my agencies' 'problem' is that our operational environment is Linux, which pretty much makes the use of ArcGIS a significant issue, not to mention the prohibitive cost of licensing to make GIS available to all potential users — up to 9 simultaneous users at each of approximately 140 separate locations around the U.S.

Regards,
Tom

----- Original Message -----
From: Jan Hartmann <j.l.h.hartmann at uva.nl>
Date: Monday, July 9, 2007 7:02 am
Subject: Re: [GRASS-user] Scientific Comparison between GRASS and Proprietary Remote Sensing/GIS Software

> Carlos, is it possible to get a copy of your article? It is 
> important in 
> "selling" GRASS and Open Source GIS in my University environment. 
> That's 
> not easy, to say the least, so I can use any help I can get.
> 
> Jan
> 
> Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann wrote:
> > This is it so far, but like I said, its _submitted_ I haven't 
> received> anything back from the reviewers yet....
> > 
> > Steiner, S.S., Grohmann, C.H., 2007. A comparison between ArcGIS and
> > GRASS-GIS in elaboration and manipulation of morphometric 
> parameters.> Submitted to Computers & Geosciences.
> > 
> > cheers
> > 
> > Carlos
> > 
> > 
> > On 7/9/07, Jan Hartmann <j.l.h.hartmann at uva.nl> wrote:
> >> Hi Firman,
> >>
> >> Could you send us a reference to your paper?
> >>
> >> Jan Hartmann
> >>
> >> Dr. J. Hartmann
> >> Department of Geography
> >> University of Amsterdam
> >>
> >> Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann wrote:
> >> > 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
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> grassuser mailing list
> >> >> grassuser at grass.itc.it
> >> >> http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grassuser
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> > 
> > 
> 
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