Voxel

3D raster map (voxel) processing in GRASS

GRASS GIS is one of the few GIS with volume data support. Here data are stored as a 3D raster with a unit volume called a voxel (volume pixel). Voxels are designed to support for example representations of trivariate continuous fields.

Import or creating of volumes

From 3D point data:

You can import 3D ASCII raster data in GRASS voxel format using r3.in.ascii or r3.in.xyz (in GRASS 6 an Addon). Note:

• For r3.in.ascii the data need to be plain and properly ordered value data with a header (see the manual for the format).
• In case of regular 3D data (x,y,z,value) in a CSV style file, use r3.in.xyz with method "mean". This only works properly when one value falls into a target voxel.

From 2D raster maps:

You can also create a volume raster model based on 2D raster data by converting 2D raster slices into 3D raster or a 3D volume map based on 2D elevation and value raster maps.

See the raster3dintro for more details.

Voxel operations

Powerful 3D map algebra is implemented in r3.mapcalc.

A 3D groundwater flow model is implement in r3.gwflow.

Cross-sections can be generated with r3.cross.rast.

Voxels can be interpolated from 3D point dat from v.vol.rst.

Voxel statistics

Volume statistics can be calculated with r3.stats and r3.univar.

Visualization

The NVIZ n-dimensional viewer supports voxel visualization. As an alternative, you can use the external Paraview application, see GRASS and Paraview:

3D groundwater flow

3D groundwater flow

See also

• Help with 3D
• GRASS and Paraview