[GRASS-user] ps.map dilemma

[Christian Ferreira]

Hi all,


I come here with a question/dilemma...

Why ps.map lacks so much user support?

A lot of people know about GRASS all over the world, but nearly nobody
use it, since nearly any software in the world is less difficult to
produce maps.

GRASS is a wonderful tool for analysis, but it fails to produce the
ultimate result: a map.

Even GMT is widely used, because a lot of people SHARE the scripts,
and there is the "GMT cookbook" on the official website.

But for GRASS everybody can see some good examples here:

http://grass.itc.it/screenshots/cartography.php

But nearly nobody share the scripts to make these wonderful maps...
and you know, a lot of people will never "lose" their time trying to
figure out how ps.map works just using the man page.

Ps.map also needs a "cookbook" in the future.

And at: http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Ps.map_scripts

Ok, we have finally a few scripts, but poorly documented.

I use GRASS since 2001, it is nearly a complete solution for GIS (in
my opinion), but ps.map was always the weak point (in my opinion
too)... normally I need to export all my region/data to
GMT/ArcView/Surfer to make the final map.

For example, my latest work was two pages for an atlas for National
Geographic Brasil/Brazil, with a work that I started developing with
GRASS since 2001... but guess if GRASS was used for the final map?

This is a shame for me. :-(

I am aware of g-ps.map (the alternate GUI for ps.map), but will take
sometime until it became truth.

So... If there someone who wants to share his knowlegde, I can at
least help to compile and document the material to prepare a real
"ps.map cookbook" on the GRASS-Wiki.

Who will join me, and share some material?

Best regards,
Christian

--
Christian dos Santos Ferreira
Oceanographer
Coordinator of Poseidon Linux
QGIS translator (EN to Brazilian Portuguese)
GRASS user since 2001 and "philosopher" for features ;-)