[Qgis-user] qgis and saga (future) integration hypothesis

[Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann]

Hello all,

just my 2cents on this (I'm a GRASS user myself):

The latest SAGA CVS is stable on linux, some bugs were fixed, and it
worked really well on my tests.

RSAGA now also works on Linux, I helped Alexander Brenning on testing it.

SAGA has a very optimized code (about 10% disk space of a GRASS
install), is very fast and is designed specifically to
terrain/hydrology analysis, instead of being a general-purpose GIS
like GRASS.

I think that a SAGA-QGIS integration would be great, adding some
really nice possibilities.


In the upcoming Geomorphometry2009 conference (August/September,
Zurich), Tom Hengl et al will present a brief comparison between GRASS
and SAGA.


cheers

Carlos



On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:36, G. Allegri<giohappy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Paolo.
> SAGA community is apprently small. The dev team is small, but they work
> hard, even if it doesn't appear from the SAGA site.
> I've just chatted with its major developer (Volker) and he was asking help
> to mantain the build chain updated and give a refresh to the site (wiki is a
> bit outdated, etc.). The latest version build binary is not available, but
> there's a quite new snapshot at Laserdata [1], where some of its developers
> work.
>
> I said the community is large, even if its not so noticeable. I have many
> collegues that use it (more then GRASS), also through the very good RSAGA
> interface for R [2]. Tomislav Hengl has lot of material about this [3]
>
> Why I'm so much interested in SAGA:
>
> I find it has all the features to make lot of (vectorial, grid and imagery)
> analysis and automation. It includes functions that GRASS doesn't offer out
> of the box, that you can find (partly) in the latter user manual (a litlle
> bit outdated) [4].
> I don't have time in this moment to list all the differences between it anf
> GRASS, and please don't misunderstand me: I love GRASS, and will continue
> using it too... but:
>
>  1 - the GRASS Windows version situation is a major problem, while SAGA
> works smooth both on Windows and Linux. I don't know which version you used,
> I haven't tried the linux version yet, but I don't see bad feedbacks in the
> resent ML posts.
>
> 2 - It doesn't need to be installed: I use it from my pen drive :)
>
> 3 - It doesn't work with topology. Yes, it can be seen as a missing,
> important, feature for someone and for some uses, but the end users often
> prefer to work directly on shapefiles, without the overhead of clean/build
> issues during GRASS imports... And that's one of the points that make QGIS,
> Gvsig, etc. more usable.
>
> 4 - The latest version (that I'm going to buid), links well with the the
> latest libraries (GDAL, PROJ) and Python 2.5.
>
> 5 - While the GRASS dev team is putting much effort in the GUI development,
> SAGA GUI is a bit secondary. It would gain great benefit from an integration
> with QGIS...
>
> Ok, this is just my personal, subjective, overview. But I repeat I don't
> wnat to discourage GRASS usage, but to highlight this good alternative...
>
> Giovanni
>
> [1] http://www.laserdata.at/saga_packages.html
> [2] http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RSAGA/index.html
> [3] http://spatial-analyst.net/wiki/index.php?search=rsaga&go=Go
> [4]
> http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/saga-gis/SAGA2_UserGuide_Cimmery_20070401.pdf
>
> 2009/7/11 Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
>>
>> G. Allegri ha scritto:
>> > SAGA algorithms were the basis on which Sextentegis was developed. Then
>> > this was integrated into Gvsig... Why don't make happen the same for
>> > SAGA? :)
>>
>> Hi Giovanni.
>> I have tested saga a few years ago, and I was rather disappointed by its
>> (lack of) stability on Linux. Also, the apparently very small community
>> was a bit worrisome to me. More generally, I do not understand well what
>> is the advantage of using saga rather than grass: have you checked their
>> different strengths and weak points?
>> Thanks a lot.
>> --
>> Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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-- 
Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Geologist D.Sc.
a.k.a. Guano - Linux User #89721
ResearcherID: A-9030-2008

http://digitalelevation.blogspot.com

http://www.igc.usp.br/pessoais/guano
_________________
Can’t stop the signal.