What’s new in a nutshell

Processed LiDAR data in GRASS GIS (screenshot by @neteler)As a follow-up to the previous GRASS GIS 7.8.3 we have published the new release GRASS GIS 7.8.4 with more than 170 improvements. This minor release again focuses on wxGUI fixes, especially in the animation export, the layer management, 3D visualization and the data catalogue. Many display modules received fixes as well, and the vector digitizer now works as expected.

The overview of new features in the 7.8 release series is available at new features in GRASS GIS 7.8. See also our detailed announcement with the full list of changes and bugs fixed at https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/7.8.4-News.

Binaries/Installer download:

Source code download:

First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics or in the cloud. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, Oct 2020

GRASS GIS 7.8.2 released with updated PROJ 6 and GDAL 3 support

What’s new in a nutshell

As a follow-up to the recent GRASS GIS 7.8.1 we have pusblished the new stable release GRASS GIS 7.8.2.
Besides other improvements, the release contains important PROJ 4/5/6 related datum handling fixes, wxGUI fixes and a fix for the vector import from PostGIS databases.

An overview of the new features in the 7.8 release series is available at new features in GRASS GIS 7.8.

Binaries/Installer download:

Source code download:

See also our detailed announcement:

First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, December 2019

Please help us testing the Python3 support in the yet unreleased GRASS GIS trunk (i.e., version “grass77” which will be released as “grass78” in the near future).

Why Python 3?

Python 2 is end-of-life (EOL); the current Python 2.7 will retire in 11 months from today (see https://pythonclock.org). We want to follow the “Moving to require Python 3” and complete the change to Python 3. And we need a broader community testing.

Download and test!

Packages are available at time:

Instructions for testing

Problems found? Please report them to us

Problems and bugs can be reported in the GRASS GIS trac. Code changes are welcome!

Thanks for testing grass77!

Today marks 35 years of GRASS GIS development – with frequent releases the project keeps pushing the limits in terms of geospatial data processing quality and performance.

GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a free and open source Geographic Information System (GIS) software suite used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics and map production, spatial modeling, and 3D visualization. Since the major GRASS GIS 7 version, it also comes with a feature rich engine for space-time cubes useful for time series processing of Landsat and Copernicus Sentinel satellite data and more. GRASS GIS can be either used as a desktop application or as a backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R. Furthermore, it is frequently used on HPC and cloud infrastructures for massive parallelized data processing.

Brief history
In 1982, under the direction of Bill Goran at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), two GIS development efforts were undertaken. First, Lloyd Van Warren, a University of Illinois engineering student, began development on a new computer program that allowed analysis of mapped data.  Second, Jim Westervelt (CERL) developed a GIS package called “LAGRID – the Landscape Architecture Gridcell analysis system” as his master’s thesis. Thirty five years ago, on 29 July 1983, the user manual for this new system titled “GIS Version 1 Reference Manual” was first published by J. Westervelt and M. O’Shea. With the technical guidance of Michael Shapiro (CERL), the software continued its development at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USA/CERL) in Champaign, Illinois; and after further expansion version 1.0 was released in 1985 under the name Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS). The GRASS GIS community was established the same year with the first annual user meeting and the launch of GRASSnet, one of the internet’s early mailing lists. The user community expanded to a larger audience in 1991 with the “Grasshopper” mailing list and the introduction of the World Wide Web. The users’ and programmers’ mailing lists archives for these early years are still available online.
In the mid 1990s the development transferred from USA/CERL to The Open GRASS Consortium (a group who would later generalize to become today’s Open Geospatial Consortium — the OGC). The project coordination eventually shifted to the international development team made up of governmental and academic researchers and university scientists. Reflecting this shift to a project run by the users, for the users, in 1999 GRASS GIS was released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). A detailed history of GRASS GIS can be found at https://grass.osgeo.org/history/.

Where to next?
The development on GRASS GIS continues with more energy and interest than ever. Parallel to the long-term maintenance of the GRASS 7.4 stable series, effort is well underway on the new upcoming cutting-edge 7.6 release, which will bring many new features, enhancements, and cleanups. As in the past, the GRASS GIS community is open to any contribution, be it in the form of programming, documentation, testing, and financial sponsorship. Please contact us!

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, July 2018

GRASS GIS 7.2.2 in action

What’s new in a nutshell

After three months of development the new update release GRASS GIS 7.2.2 is available. It provides more than 120 stability fixes and manual improvements compared to release version 7.2.1. An overview of new features in the 7.2 release series is available at New Features in GRASS GIS 7.2.

About GRASS GIS 7: Its graphical user interface supports the user to make complex GIS operations as simple as possible. The updated Python interface to the C library permits users to create new GRASS GIS-Python modules in a simple way while yet obtaining powerful and fast modules. Furthermore, the libraries were again significantly improved for speed and efficiency, along with support for huge files. A lot of effort has been invested to standardize parameter and flag names. Finally, GRASS GIS 7 comes with a series of new modules to analyse raster and vector data, along with a full temporal framework. For a detailed overview, see the list of new features. As a stable release series, 7.2.x enjoys long-term support.

Binaries/Installer download:

Source code download:

More details:

See also our detailed announcement:

First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, Sep 2017

We are pleased to announce the update release GRASS GIS 7.2.1

GRASS GIS 7.2.1 in actionWhat’s new in a nutshell

After four months of development the new update release GRASS GIS 7.2.1 is available. It provides more than 150 stability fixes and manual improvements compared to the first stable release version 7.2.0. An overview of new features in this release series is available at New Features in GRASS GIS 7.2.

About GRASS GIS 7: Its graphical user interface supports the user to make complex GIS operations as simple as possible. The updated Python interface to the C library permits users to create new GRASS GIS-Python modules in a simple way while yet obtaining powerful and fast modules. Furthermore, the libraries were again significantly improved for speed and efficiency, along with support for huge files. A lot of effort has been invested to standardize parameter and flag names. Finally, GRASS GIS 7 comes with a series of new modules to analyse raster and vector data, along with a full temporal framework. For a detailed overview, see the list of new features. As a stable release series, 7.2.x enjoys long-term support.

Binaries/Installer download:

Source code download:

More details:

See also our detailed announcement:

https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Grass7/NewFeatures72 (overview of new 7.2 stable release series)

https://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/ (list of available addons)

First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, May 2017

We are pleased to announce the stable release of GRASS GIS 7.2.0

What’s new in a nutshell

After almost two years of development the new stable major release GRASS GIS 7.2.0 is available. It provides more than 1950 stability fixes and manual improvements compared to the former stable release version 7.0.5. The new version includes a series of new modules to analyse raster and vector data along with new temporal algebra functionality.More than 50 new addons are also available. A summary of the new features is available at New Features in GRASS GIS 7.2.

About GRASS GIS 7: Its graphical user interface supports the user to make complex GIS operations as simple as possible. The updated Python interface to the C library permits users to create new GRASS GIS-Python modules in a simple way while yet obtaining powerful and fast modules. Furthermore, the libraries were again significantly improved for speed and efficiency, along with support for huge files. A lot of effort has been invested to standardize parameter and flag names. Finally, GRASS GIS 7 comes with a series of new modules to analyse raster and vector data, along with a full temporal framework. For a detailed overview, see the list of new features. As a stable release series, 7.2.x enjoys long-term support.

Binaries/Installer download:

Source code download:

More details:

See also our detailed announcement:

First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, December 2016

Press release

From March 2016 onwards, Dr. Markus Neteler, a prominent head of the Open Source GIS scene, will join the management board of mundialis GmbH & Co. KG in Bonn, Germany. Founded in 2015, mundialis combines remote sensing and satellite data analysis in the field of Big Data with Open Source WebGIS solutions.

Since 2008, Dr. Neteler was the head of the GIS and remote sensing unit at the Edmund Mach Foundation in Trento (Italy) and worked in this capacity on numerous projects related to biodiversity, environmental and agricultural research. He is also a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Delaware (USA), that promotes the development and use of free and open source geographic information systems (GIS). Since 1998 he coordinated the development of the well known GRASS GIS software project, a powerful Open Source GIS that supports processing of time series of several thousand raster, 3D raster or vector maps in a short time. Mongolia as seen by Sentinel-2A

Markus will keep his role as “Mr. GRASS” at mundialis, especially because the company also sees itself as a research and development enterprise that puts its focus on the open source interfaces between geoinformation and remote sensing. Although a new company, mundialis offers more than 50 years of experience in GIS, due to the background of its management. Besides Neteler, there are Till Adams and Hinrich Paulsen, both at the same time the founders and CEOs of terrestris in Bonn, a company that develops Open Source GIS solutions since 2002. These many years of experience in the construction of WebGIS and Geoportal architectures using free software as well as in the application of common OGC standards – are now combined with mundialis’ expertise in the processing of big data with spatial reference and remote sensing data.

Contact: https://www.mundialis.de/

What’s new in a nutshellgrass7_logo_500px

This release addresses some minor issues found in the first GRASS GIS 7.0.0 release published earlier this year. The new release provides a series of stability fixes in the core system and the graphical user interface, PyGRASS improvements, some manual enhancements, and a few language translations.

This release is the 32nd birthday release of GRASS GIS.

New in GRASS GIS 7: Its new graphical user interface supports the user in making complex GIS operations as simple as possible. A new Python interface to the C library permits users to create new GRASS GIS-Python modules in a simple way while yet obtaining powerful and fast modules. Furthermore, the libraries were significantly improved for speed and efficiency, along with support for huge files. A lot of effort has been invested to standardize parameter and flag names. Finally, GRASS GIS 7 comes with a series of new modules to analyse raster and vector data, along with a full temporal framework. For a detailed overview, see the list of new features. As a stable release 7.0 enjoys long-term support.

Source code download:

Binaries download:

More details:

See also our detailed announcement:

  https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Grass7/NewFeatures (overview of new stable release series)First time users may explore the first steps tutorial after installation.

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

The GRASS Development Team, July 2015

qgis-icon_smallThanks to the work of Devrim Gündüz, Volker Fröhlich, Dave Johansen, Rex Dieter and other Fedora/EPEL packagers I had an easy going to prepare RPM packages of QGIS 2.8 Wien for Fedora 20 and 21, Centos 7, and Scientific Linux 7.

The base SRPM package I copied from Fedora’s koji server, modified the SPEC file in order to remove the now outdated PyQwt bindings (see bugzilla) and compiled QGIS 2.8 via the great COPR platform.

Repo: https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/neteler/QGIS-2.8-Wien/

The following packages can now be installed and tested on epel-7-x86_64 (Centos 7, Scientific Linux 7, etc.), Fedora-20-x86_64, and Fedora-21-x86_64:

  • qgis 2.8.1
  • qgis-debuginfo 2.8.1
  • qgis-devel 2.8.1
  • qgis-grass 2.8.1
  • qgis-python 2.8.1
  • qgis-server 2.8.1

Installation instructions (run as “root” user or use “sudo”):

# EPEL7:
yum -y install epel-release
yum -y install wget
# https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/python-OWSLib/
wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/neteler-python-OWSLib-epel-7.repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/python-OWSLib/repo/epel-7/neteler-python-OWSLib-epel-7.repo
yum -y update
yum -y install python-OWSLib
wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/qgis-epel-7.repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/QGIS-2.8-Wien/repo/epel-7/neteler-QGIS-2.8-Wien-epel-7.repo
yum update
yum install qgis qgis-grass qgis-python qgis-server

# Fedora 20:
wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/qgis-epel-7.repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/QGIS-2.8-Wien/repo/fedora-20/neteler-QGIS-2.8-Wien-fedora-20.repo
yum update
yum install qgis qgis-grass qgis-python qgis-server

# Fedora 21:
wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/qgis-epel-7.repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/QGIS-2.8-Wien/repo/fedora-21/neteler-QGIS-2.8-Wien-fedora-21.repo
yum update
yum install qgis qgis-grass qgis-python qgis-server

The other packages are optional (well, also qgis-grass, qgis-python, and qgis-server…).

Enjoy!

PS: Of course I hope that QGIS 2.8 officially hits EPEL7 anytime soon! My COPR repo is just a temporary bridge towards that goal.

EDIT 30 April 2015:

  • updated EPEL7 installation for python-OWSLib dependency