[GRASSweb-list]markus: web/announces announce_grass570.html,NONE,1.1

Mon Jun 21 05:41:01 EDT 2004

Author: markus

Update of /grassrepository/web/announces
In directory doto:/tmp/cvs-serv27308

Added Files:
	announce_grass570.html 
Log Message:
draft 5.7.0 announcement

--- NEW FILE: announce_grass570.html ---
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
   <DEFANGED_meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
   <DEFANGED_meta name="Author" content="GRASS Development Team">
   <title>GRASS GIS 5.7.0 released 17 June 2004</title>
   <DEFANGED_link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../sitestyle.css">
</head>
<body>

<b>The GRASS Development Team announces:</b>

<h2>GRASS GIS 5.7.0 released 17 June 2004</h2>

After more than two years of development a revamped GRASS implementation
has been published. This is a first official release to be taken as 
"technology preview" (see the <a href="../roadmap.html">GRASS Development 
Roadmap</a>) for a later stable version.

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as
GRASS GIS, is a Geographical Information System (GIS) used for data
management, image processing, graphics production, spatial modelling, and
visualization of raster, vector and sites data. It is open source
Free Software released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU 
General Public License (GPL)</a>.

<h3>Platforms supported by GRASS:</h3>

<p>GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris (SPARC/Intel), Silicon Graphics Irix, 
Mac OS X/Darwin, Microsoft Windows with Cygwin, HP-UX, DEC-Alpha, AIX, BSD,
iPAQ/Linux and other UNIX compliant platforms (32/64bit).</p>

<h3>Software download:</h3>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://grass.itc.it/download.html">http://grass.itc.it</a></li>
<li><a href="http://grass.ibiblio.org/download.html">http://grass.ibiblio.org</a></li>
<li>various <a href="../grass.mirrors.html">mirror sites</a></li>
</ul>

<p>The new source code is available now, and selected binary distributions for
major operating systems will be published shortly.</p>

<p>For details on GRASS software capabilities please refer to:
<a href="../general.html">http://grass.itc.it/general.html</a></p>

<h3>What's new in GRASS 5.7.0</h3>

Geometry:
GRASS 5.7.0 comes with a completely overhauled vector engine which was
extended to manage 2D and 3D topological vector data. A new spatial 
indexing system accelerates data access.
Vector data can be imported (which allows for topological data cleanup)
as well as live-linked into the GRASS database. A new library, the 
Directed Graph Library, provides support for vector network analysis.

Attribute management:
Full and flexible integration of database management systems (DBMS)
for attribute management is part of the new vector engine 
(at time PostgreSQL, mySQL, dbf, ODBC supported). SQL statements are
used to manage attributes. Graphical updating of vector attributes 
has been implemented.

User interface:
A graphical user interface for every module is generated on the fly;
the classical 'tcltkgrass' Graphical User Interface menu structure is 
also available. NVIZ was enhanced to display 3D vector data as well.
And a completely new graphical digitizing tool has been implemented.

Data Import/Export:
GRASS 5.7.0 is integrated with the GDAL/OGR library to support
a wide range of raster and vector formats. OGC-conformal Simple Features
vector data are converted to the topological GRASS format; vice verse
the export into Simple Features is possible.

Enhancements included from 5.3.0:
This release bundles the new vector capabilities with all improvements
of <a href="announce_grass530.html"GRASS 5.3.0</a> (support of 
datum transformation, use of external PROJ4 and GDAL/OGR libraries,
shared libraries making binaries significantly smaller, G3D 3-D Raster
Voxel tools). The raster capabilities are identical with 5.3.0.

<P>
For a more comprehensive list of changed modules see the 
<a href="../grass57/source/ChangeLog">ChangeLog</a>.</p>

<p>We are always looking for both testers and developers to help us maintain
and accelerate this development cycle.</p>

<hr>
<address>
<a href=http://grass.itc.it>GRASS Development Team</a> <br>
Date: 17 June 2004 (last changed: $Date: 2004/06/21 09:40:59 $)
</address>
</body>
</html>