From GRASS GIS novice to power user (workshop at FOSS4G Boston 2017)
Description: Do you want to use GRASS GIS, but never understood what that location and mapset are? Do you struggle with the computational region? Or perhaps you used GRASS GIS already but you wonder what g.region -a does? Maybe you were never comfortable with GRASS command line? In this workshop, we will explain and practice all these functions and answer questions more advanced users may have. We will help you decide when to use graphical user interface and when to use the power of command line. We will go through simple examples of vector, raster, and image processing functionality and we will try couple of new and old tools such as vector network analysis or image segmentation which might be the reason you want to use GRASS GIS. We aim this workshop at absolute beginners without prior knowledge of GRASS GIS, but we hope it can be useful also to current users looking for deeper understanding of basic concepts or the curious ones who want to try the latest additions to GRASS GIS.
Format and requirements: Participants should bring their laptops with GRASS GIS 7. Beginners are encouraged to try using the latest OSGeo-Live virtual machine. There are no special requirements. Just have your laptop with GRASS GIS or OSGeo-Live virtual machine with you.
Authors: Anna Petrasova from North Carolina State University (NCSU), Giuseppe Amatulli from Yale University, and Vaclav Petras from NCSU
Preparation
Software
GRASS GIS 7.2 compiled with libLAS is needed (e.g. r.in.lidar should work).
OSGeo-Live
All needed software is included.
Ubuntu
Install GRASS GIS from packages:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install grass
Linux
For other Linux distributions other then Ubuntu, please try to find GRASS GIS in their package managers.
MS Windows
Download the standalone GRASS GIS binaries from grass.osgeo.org.
Mac OS
Install GRASS GIS using Homebrew osgeo4mac:
brew tap osgeo/osgeo4mac brew install grass7
Note that currently (summer 2017) r.in.lidar is often not accessible on Mac OS, use r.in.ascii in combination with libLAS or PDAL command line tools to achieve the same. Note also that the 3D view may not be accessible.
Data
Introduction to the GRASS folder structure and environment
Introduction to graphical user interface and command line
GRASS working environment and working directory
Create location and mapset (from GUI and from command line)
Setting the study area extent and pixel size to make the computation correct and efficient
Move data to and from GRASS database
Move data between locations and mapsets
Perform basic raster and vector operations
Try out some of the more advanced and latest features
Running processes in command line on HPC
grass7 -c path/to/database/location/mapset grass7 path/to/database/location/mapset --exec script.py params rm path/to/database/location/mapset