GSoC 2021 Improved Integration of GRASS GIS and Jupyter Notebooks

Title:	Improved Integration of GRASS GIS and Jupyter Notebooks
Student Name:	Caitlin Haedrich, ​North Carolina State University
Organization:	​OSGeo - Open Source Geospatial Foundation
Mentor Name:	Vaclav Petras, Helena Mitasova, Stephan Blumentrath
GitHub Repository:	​View Repo
GSoC proposal:	​View Proposal

Abstract

The current integration of GRASS GIS and Jupyter Notebooks requires a cumbersome environment variable setup after launching GRASS from within the notebook. It also only allows for simple, non-interactive map displays. My project will address both these issues and improve the GRASS-Jupyter integration with a new package called grass.jupyter.

Goal

My goal is to design a Python/PyGRASS library which will have 3 main components for improving the GRASS-Jupyter integration: (1) creating new initiation functions for the launch of GRASS GIS in Jupyter Notebooks, (2) creating functions for more intuitive map display and, (3) introducing an interactive map display function.

Timeline

Time Period	Milestones
	Tasks	Status
May 17th - June 7th Community Bonding	Introduce myself in dev and SOC mailing lists Get in contact with mentors and discuss project Prepare the wiki page Set up the GitHub repository for project Set up developer environment	Ok Ok Ok Ok Ok
June 7th - June 11th Week 1	Finish Binder Set Up Write grass.jupyter initiation functions	Ok Ok
June 14th - June 18th Week 2	Write non-interactive display functions
June 21st - June 25 Week 3	Begin writing interactive/folium map functions
June 28 - July 2 Week 4	Finish writing interactive/folium map functions
July 5th - July 9th Week 5	Write test modules
July 12th - July 16th Week 6: Evaluations	Receive feedback and start second draft
July 19th - July 23rd Week 7	Revise and improve functions
July 26th - July 30th Week 8	Continue revising and improving functions Create documentation and tutorials.
August 2nd - August 6th Week 9	Finish Documentation and tutorials
August 9th - August 13th 'Week 10'	Write project summary
August 16th- August 23rd Week 11: Final Evaluation and Code Submission	Submit code and final evaluation.

Bonding period report

With the bonding period wrapped up, here is a brief update on what I've been working on so far.

1. What did I accomplish during the bonding period?

• I introduced myself in dev and SOC mailing lists (​1).
• I had a productive meeting with my mentors, Vashek Petras, Helena Mitasova and Stefan Blumentrath last Friday. We discussed the best development environment (see second to last bullet point) and setting up the main GRASS repository to run in Binder (see last bullet point).
• Prepared the wiki page.
• Set up the GitHub repository for project (​2).
• Set up developer environment. Since development will be easier on Linux, I set up a VirtualBox with Linux (Ubuntu) on my Windows machine. I compiled and installed GRASS and installed Jupyter Notebooks in Ubuntu.
• Opened my first PR (​3) which contains binder dependencies.

2. What do you plan on doing next week?

I've started working on setting up the GRASS repository to run in Binder (​3). This week I plan to continue working on that, set up branches for each of the PRs, and begin writing functions for the grass.jupyter library.

3. Are you blocked on anything?

No, I'm not currently blocked on anything.

Evaluation Status

Weekly reports

Week 1

With Week 1 wrapping up, here is an update on what I worked on this week and where I'm headed next week.

1) What did I get done this week?

• Finished binder setup for GRASS main repo. PR was approved. There's a new folder in the main GRASS repo that contains the necessary files to launch the repository in binder.
  
• Added Binder Button. PR under review. This button will go in the README.md and allow users to launch a Jupyter Lab of the repository in binder. Users can run GRASS (i.e. a compiled version of the main GRASS repo) in Jupyter Notebooks there.
  
• Created an ​example notebook that is linked from the Binder Button. The notebook was copied from ​here and demonstrates the existing Jupyter/GRASS integration.
  
• Wrote draft of GRASS initiation functions for Jupyter (​PR).
  
• Created Makefile and init.py file for grass.jupyter (​PR).
  
• Created a Jupyter Notebook where others can view and test the grass.jupyter functions (​PR).
  

2) What do I plan on doing next week? I plan to start working on display functions and familiarizing myself with Folium.

3) Am I blocked on anything? No, I'm not currently blocked on anything.

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Discussion Notes

Future Work