GRASS and Sextante

From GRASS-Wiki
Revision as of 21:30, 17 April 2011 by Neteler (talk | contribs) (replace bundled GRASS with a fresh one)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

GRASS has been integrated into Sextante as extension. Sextante itself is commonly used within gvSIG. Through this integration, gvSIG users have access to the wealth of well tested algorithms provided by GRASS.

Note: the GDAL-GRASS plugin must be installed.

Installation

How to install the improved gvSIG OADE version

From version gvSIG OA Digital Edition 2010 (1.0) onwards, Sextante 0.6 with integrated GRASS GIS support is included.

You can download and install OADE gvSIG binaries from here.


Note 1: If you are on a 64bit system, add this to your settings file, e.g. $HOME/.bashrc:

 # 32bit fix
 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/gvsig-oade-2010-1.0.0/grass/lib/

Note 2: If you want to use latest GRASS 6.4 rather than the bundled version, you can simply replace the included grass/ version in the gvsig-oade-2010-1.0.0/ directory. For example, get latest Linux 32bit GRASS binaries here. Likewise, for MacOSX (or Windows).

Alternative: How to install the original gvSIG version

From gvSIG 1.10 onwards, Sextante with integrated GRASS GIS support is included (which yet fails):

  1. download gvSIG binaries from here (download the All-included version)
  2. run the installer
  3. start gvSIG

Activating GRASS GIS in Sextante

(modified after grass_sextante.html)

Configuring Sextante to use GRASS takes just a few easy steps. Once you have configured the system, you will be able to execute GRASS algorithms from any Sextante component like the toolbox or the graphical modeller, just like you do with any other Sextante geo-algorithm.

Only two parameters must be set, namely:

  • The path to the GRASS installation folder. It is needed by Sextante to execute GRASS commands.
  • The path to a GRASS mapset. Sextante is able to use a temporary mapset.

So we do the simple setup:

  • Open the Sextante Toolbox icon
  • Go to Sextante settings (open icon -> right of the "Search" bar at bottom of the window)
  • Go to "GRASS". Set therein
    • GRASS folder: /path/to/grass-binary-installation/ (e.g., /usr/local/grass-6.4.0/ )
    • Activate "Create temporary mapset"
  • Click on "Setup GRASS" to register the raster and vector commands
  • Now click on the "Help" button to know that it is there and what it contains
  • Finally click "OK" to leave the dialog. Now 5xx Sextante/GRASS commands should be available

How to use

Note that GRASS is used in an internal temporary session (so you cannot open GRASS data but work on GeoTIFF, SHAPE files using GRASS through gvSIG/Sextante).

Getting sample data

A sample dataset is available here (based on free North Carolina dataset, packaged by B. Ducke):

  ftp://88.208.250.116/gvsig-ref-data-nc.zip

Unpack the data set. It contains several raster and vector map files. The projection is (EPSG code 32119).

Sample session

  1. Start a new project: "File" -> "New Project" -> Click on the new name -> "Open" button
  2. Set the projection of the View: "View" -> "Properties" -> "Current projection" -> "Type:" select "EPSG" -> Enter code: "32119" -> Click on "Search" -> Click on "OK" -> Accept Properties with "OK"

Vector points map interpolation

  1. Add a vector points map with the "Add layer" icon (top menu): File -> "Add" -> Select file "geodetic_pts.shp" -> "OK"
  2. Zoom to a portion of the map
  3. Open Sextante dialog
  4. Go to "GRASS", expand "Vector (v.*)"
  5. Select "v.in.idw" (double click)
    1. The SHAPE file "geodetic_pts.shp" should be preselected. Enter as column name "elevation".
    2. Go to the region tab and select "Use extent from view".
    3. Enter "Cell size": 1000 (this is in map units, here: meters)
    4. Click "OK" to run the computation
  6. The resulting IDW interpolated raster map should appear in the view.
gvSIG-Sextante-GRASS GIS: IDW interpolated geodetic points, North Carolina, USA

Raster map analysis: Create topographic index map from elevation map

  1. Add a raster elevation map with the "Add layer" icon (top menu): File -> "Add" -> Select File Type "Raster" -> Select file "north_carolina/wake/wake_elevation.tif" -> "OK", "Accept" projection.
  2. "Zoom to layer" with right mouse button in the legend
  3. Open Sextante dialog
  4. Go to "GRASS", expand "Raster (r.*)"
  5. Go to "r.topidx"
    1. Start (double click) r.topidx, the map "wake_elevation.tif" should be predefined, as output write "wake_topidx.tif" (it will go into your current directory; check with browse button),
    2. Go to the region tab and select "Use extent from view".
    3. Enter "Cell size": 10 (this is in map units, here: meters)
    4. Click "OK" to run the computation
  6. It should have generated a new map which should appear in the view.
gvSIG-Sextante-GRASS GIS: Topographic index map from elevation map, North Carolina, USA

See also