The GRASS Development Team announces
Highlights include further maturation of the GRASS 6 GUI, vector, and database code. Some improvements have been backported from the GRASS 6.3 development branch where new development continues at a strong pace of approximately one code commit every hour, including major work on an all new cross-platform wxPython GUI and a native MS Windows port.
The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) combining powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines into a single integrated software suite. GRASS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated 4D presentation graphics and hardcopy maps.
GRASS is currently used around the world in academic and commercial settings as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. It runs on a variety of popular hardware platforms and is Free open-source software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
GRASS is a proposed founding project of the new Open Source Geospatial Foundation. In support of the movement towards consolidation in the open source geospatial software world, GRASS is tightly integrated with the latest GDAL/OGR libraries. This enables access to an extensive range of raster and vector formats, including OGC-conformal Simple Features. GRASS also makes use of the highly regarded PROJ.4 software library with support for most known map projections and the easy definition of new and rare map projections via custom parameterization. Strong links are maintained with the QuantumGIS and R Statistics projects with integrated GRASS toolkits available for both.
GNU/Linux, Mac OS X/Darwin, Microsoft Windows (with full UNIX support via Cygwin), Sun Solaris (SPARC/Intel), Silicon Graphics Irix, HP-UX, DEC-Alpha, AIX, BSD, iPAQ/Linux and other UNIX compliant platforms. GRASS runs on both 32 and 64 bit systems with large files (>2GB) supported by many key modules.
The new source code is available now and binary packages for major operating systems will be published shortly.
For details on GRASS software capabilities please refer to: http://grass.itc.it/intro/general.php, the previous GRASS 6.0.0, GRASS 6.2.0, GRASS 6.2.1, and GRASS 6.2.2 release announcements, and the Wiki collaborative help system.
For a comprehensive list of changes see the full ChangeLog or the ChangeLog since 6.2.2.
For a complete list of commands available in GRASS 6.2.3 see the online manuals and the GRASS 6 module list.
We are always looking for testers, code developers, and technical
writers to help us maintain
and accelerate the development cycle.
The GRASS GIS project is developed under the terms of the
GNU General Public License
(the GPL) in the open by
volunteers the
world over.
GRASS differs from many other GIS software packages used in the professional
world in that it is developed and distributed by users for users, mostly on a
volunteer basis, in the open, and is given away for free.
Emphasis is placed on interoperability and unlimited access to data as well as
on software flexibility and evolution rate.
The source code is freely available allowing for immediate customization,
examination of the underlying algorithms, addition of new features, and
fast bug fixing.
A repository of many community contributed add-on modules is available on the GRASS Wiki site.
GRASS 6.2 release history: