[GLLUG] Linux / GIS

[Ashton Shortridge]

On Wednesday 24 August 2005 10:36 am, Ex Fed wrote:
> Ashton:
>
> Are you using Linux in any of your work with GIS?
>
> Could you explain to us how are you using it.   Have you ever used GRASS?
>
> That's  Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, for those of you who
> wondered if I inhaled while I wrote that.
>
>
>
> Lee
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> linux-user mailing list
> linux-user at egr.msu.edu
> http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user

Funny you should ask!

I'm writing this on a box running Kanotix (http://kanotix.com/info/index.php) 
a live distro with (relatively) easy HD installation of Dabian Sid. I do most 
of my research work on this machine. 

That said, most of my crunchy stuff is not done in standalone GIS (geographic 
information systems), but employ C and python code I've written over the 
years. This code generally interacts loosely with GIS, by reading and writing 
formats importable by Arc/Info and other GIS software. I then use these other 
packages for data preprocessing and visualization (mapping).

Commercial GIS solutions do not use Linux much, although ESRI's ArcGIS has 
Linux-based solutions for webserving. Arc/Info and Arcview do run on various 
UNIX platforms; in the geography department we have both M$ labs running 
ArcGIS (frontend coded in VisualBasic I think, so no hope there), and a Sun 
lab running A/I and AV. Of course I can connect to the Suns quite easily from 
my Linux box and do good things with it.

GRASS (http://grass.itc.it/) is a facinating GIS. I used it for much of my 
masters work in the mid 90's. It was originally developed by the Army Core of 
Engineers, but was open sourced and today is under very active development. 
It's very powerful with good ties to various open database and statistics 
software projects, and strong dynamic environmental modeling modules. I think 
it's less good at doing vector-based stuff, but I haven't played with it much 
recently.

GRASS user's conference T-shirts used to be quick sellers in the college towns 
that hosted them. Most people purchasing had no idea what GIS was, of course; 
they just loved the name!

Installing it in Debian is a simple apt-get (I recall GRASS being a nightmare 
to install back in the day), and there are a variety of on-line tutorials and 
data sets to get new users going.

I intend to use it in GEO 425, our advanced GIS course, this winter (erm, MSU 
insists on calling it the 'spring' semester). I'm beginning to get up to 
speed on the new features and get the rust off that part of my mind that 
remembers command-line GRASS.

As far as I know, GRASS is not being used at MSU. Definitely not in the 
Geography Dapartment, which is very ESRI-centric. Perhaps GEO 425 will start 
generating that critical mass of folks doing interesting things with GRASS.

A good general reference for open source GIS is, shockingly,
http://opensourcegis.org/
A quick look will convince you that there's a ton out there, but most are 
either fairly specialized or in an early or arrested stage of development.

If anybody else on the list knows of open source GIS activities on campus or 
in the area, I'd be delighted to hear about them!

Ashton

-- 
Ashton Shortridge
Assistant Professor			ashton at msu.edu
Dept of Geography			http://www.msu.edu/~ashton
Michigan State University		(517) 432-3561