GRASS GIS

Version: 6.4.0RC3 (as of Feb 2009)

User Notes

• A desktop raster/vector GIS system (command line and graphical user interface)
• Main site: ​http://grass.osgeo.org/
• Current packaging should be considered a preliminary proof-of-concept.
• The default interface is the Tcl/Tk GUI GIS manager. Both a plain text curses DOS box command prompt, and a shiny new wxPython GUI interface are also available.
• First time users should explore the ​first steps tutorial after installing.

Installation

• Get the ​OSGeo4W Installer. (400k net-installer, full download is approx 60-80mb)
  • Generic installer help can be found on the main OSGeo4W wiki page.
• For the moment GRASS is available in the "advanced" install. After a period of testing it may be moved to the "express" section. All other required packages are auto-selected during the installation.

The application can be run through:

• a desktop shortcut
• a menu shortcut
• its executable osgeo4w\apps\grass-6.4.X\bin\grass64.bat
• on the osgeo4w shell through the grass64.bat

How to get command line:

• Start the osgeo4w shell. Then type:

     grass64 -text
  

How to start GRASS with the new wxPython GUI:

• Start the osgeo4w shell. Then type:

     grass64 -wxpython
  

Alternatively from the Tcl/Tk GUI go to Config -> GRASS working environment -> Change settings -> GRASS variable to set -> "GRASS_GUI=wxpython" If it doesn't work, make sure that python is in the path.

Installation Update

• It is sufficient to re-run the installer which fetches the list of packages to then suggest available updates for the individual packages.

TODO: Yet the cmd style doesn't change, which is confusing (prompt). <- ? please submit a tract ticket [do you mean the C:\> command prompt?]

Packager Notes

• Compile guide used: ​http://www.webalice.it/marco.pasetti/grass/BuildFromSource.html (requires updates, better move here)
• Details on WinGRASS at: ​http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/WinGRASS_Current_Status
• Steps:
  • compile GRASS in a way that it fits in the OSGeo4W directory hierarchy
  • package in a tar.bz2 file
  • write/update "setup.hint" which describes the package and defines the dependencies on other OSGeo4W packages
  • if needed, write/update "etc/postinstall/$paketname.bat" which is executed after extraction of the package during installation to define menu stuff and link on user desktop.
• Depends on the MSYS package for command line operations, because GRASS 6 uses unix shell scripts (GRASS 7 uses Python)
• WinGRASS is built with MSYS/MinGW. The libraries used to link to the VC++ built GDAL & friends is in the mingw-libs package.
• There is also a grass-vc package, that contains the VC++ built GRASS libraries. These are used in the Quantum GIS GRASS plugin.
• Release tree: ​http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/release/grass/ (the installer selects the package with highest version number)
• Maintainer is JuergenFischer (seeking new package maintainer)