[GRASS-user] Re: grass-user Digest, Vol 41, Issue 45

[Michael Barton]

On Sep 22, 2009, at 9:00 AM, grass-user-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:57:28 +0200
> From: Ferruccio Sarra <ferruccio.sarra at tiscali.it>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS-user] wxpython 3D view
> To: Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>
> Cc: grass-user at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID: <4AB8E5D8.3050709 at tiscali.it>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Martin Landa ha scritto:
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2009/9/21 Maris Nartiss <maris.gis at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> As GRASS 7 will be TCL/Tk legacy free, someday somebody will  
>>> implement
>>> most usefull NVIZ features into wxNVIZ (or whatever it's called).
>>> Still IMHO right now nobody is working on new features for NVIZ. I
>>> will return to attribute based vector styling as soon as I will have
>>> free time for coding, still it will not hit wxNVIZ for some time, as
>>> I'm still looking into old tcl/tk one direction.
>>>
>>
>>
>>> 2009/9/21 Ferruccio Sarra <ferruccio.sarra at tiscali.it>:
>>>
>>>> I encountered the same problem. Moreover (don't know at all the  
>>>> state of the
>>>> art...) I would know whether all commands available in tcltk NVIZ  
>>>> gui (like
>>>> keyframe animation) will be implemented in wx. Some news on this  
>>>> issue?
>>>>
>>
>> right 3D viewer in wxGUI (or wxNviz if you like) supports ~30% of
>> TCL/TK Nviz capability. Initial prototype has been designed within
>> Google Summer of Code 2008 project [1] by me. Currently I have no  
>> time
>> to continue with that development (probably the next year will be
>> possible for me). So any volunteer is welcomed, also GSoC project the
>> next year would be cool.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> [1] http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/WxNviz
>>
>>
>
> I have to thank you Martin and all the Grass crew for working on
> improving and maintaining this great project since I spent last times
> using  both Grass and Nviz.  However I noticed that there are lots of
> open projects apps on 3D visualization of geodata (Nviz, Ossim, ecc).
> Each one have upsides but all are far from being complete products. Is
> it just a wrong impression?
> Some suggestion on what to expect from 3d visualization sftw future?
>
> Ferruccio

As Martin says, we ultimately hope to match some of the functionality  
of the current TclTk nviz. But of course, we can also hope to do  
things that nviz didn't. And especially, the new 3D display has the  
potential to be much more tightly integrated into comprehensive GIS  
visualization rather than being a separate module.

Martin has done all the really hard work of integrating OpenGL,  
wxPython, and GRASS. While there is probably more that could be done  
with C++ or C programming, there is quite a bit that could be done  
with Python/wxPython skills. Like all of GRASS, this is a volunteer  
effort. I've been really tied up over the past year and Martin has had  
to shoulder the work of maintaining and improving the wxPython GUI  
alone during that time. Martin is getting tied up now and I'm finding  
a bit of time to contribute again. Nevertheless, it is still a big job  
to support this. The GUI is a VERY large body of complex code.

In terms of priorities, we are trying to make the code we now have as  
robust as possible so that it can be a default GUI on all platforms.  
We're pretty close on getting most of the bugs dealt with. Then we  
will start in again on new enhancements for GRASS 7. Expanding the  
capabilities of the 3D display is certainly one of the items for the  
future, but not the only one. Others previously mentioned include  
wxPython GUI interfaces for supervised image classification,  
orthophoto rectification, and publication-quality cartography. To echo  
Martin, we welcome volunteers.

Michael