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GRASS GIS 7.2.0RC1 released

We are pleased to announce the first release candidate of GRASS GIS 7.2.0

What’s new in a nutshell

This is the first release candidate of the upcoming major release GRASS GIS 7.2.0.

The new GRASS GIS 7.2.0RC1 release provides more than 1900 stability fixes and manual improvements compared to the stable releases 7.0.x.

hexagons_python_editorAbout 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 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/NewFeatures (overview of new 7 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, October 2016

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GRASS GIS PSC election 2016 results

The new GRASS GIS Project Steering Committee (PSC) is composed of the following nine members (ranking, name, votes):

1 Markus Neteler 62
2 Helena Mitasova 53
3 Martin Landa 52
4 Anna Petrasova 45
5 Moritz Lennert 41
6 Margherita Di Leo 39
7 Michael Barton 35
8 Peter Löwe 33
9 Vaclav Petras 31

More details in earlier announcement sent to the “grass-psc” mailing list:
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-psc/2016-August/001571.html.

For completeness, all relevant candidacy communications, as well as details about the voting process, are published at
https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/PSC/Election2016

Cited from the original announcement email:
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-announce/2016-September/000119.html

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New GRASS GIS 7.2.x stable release branch created

Towards the new stable release series

As of 24 May 2016, a new stable release branch was created for the upcoming GRASS GIS 7.2 release. This new branch includes all the many improvements which have been implemented in the former development version 7.1.svn.

What is a branch? In simple words, it is a kind of directory in the software development server (SVN in our case) in which no more development but only bugfixing happens. From a release branch, new stable releases are created and published.

The actual branches in the GRASS GIS project are:

  • very old stable: releasebranch_6_4 (used for bugfixing and to publish stable GRASS GIS 6.4.x releases) – very low release frequency (started in revision r34936)
  • old stable releasebranch_7_0 (used for bugfixing and to publish stable GRASS GIS 7.0.x releases) – perhaps one last release upcoming (branch started in revision r59487 but development already started in Apr 2008 in r31142)
  • new stable releasebranch_7_2 (used for bugfixing and to publish stable GRASS GIS 7.2.x releases) – upcoming series of stable releases (branch started in revision r68500)
  • trunk (used for development, with pseudo-name 7.3.svn) – under heavy development

Note to SVN users

The trunk branch with pseudo-name 7.1.svn has become 7.3.svn due to the creation of the new 7.2.svn release branch. You can simply continue to update from SVN, the version will be automatically updated.

If you used to work with the 7.0.svn release branch, consider to download the new 7.2.svn release branch, either from the weekly source code snapshot (here) or from the SVN server directly (here).

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 2016

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Markus Neteler joins the management of mundialis in Bonn

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/

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GRASS GIS 7.0.2 released

What’s new in a nutshell

The new GRASS GIS 7.0.2 release provides 190 stability fixes and manual improvements.

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 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, 7.0.x 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 7.0 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, November 2015

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GRASS GIS 7.0.1 released – 32 years of GRASS GIS

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

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Sol Katz Award – Call for Nominations

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation would like to open nominations for the 2015 Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software.

The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) will be given to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm.

Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities while at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. This early GFOSS archive provided both source code and applications freely available to the community. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large.

Sol unfortunately passed away in 1999 from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but his legacy lives on in the open source world. Those interested in making a donation to the American Cancer Society, as per Sol’s family’s request, can do so at https://donate.cancer.org/index.

Nominations for the Sol Katz Award should be sent to SolKatzAward@osgeo.org with a description of the reasons for this nomination. Nominations will be accepted until 23:59 UTC on August 21st (https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=8&day=21&year=2015&hour=23&min=59&sec=59).
A recipient will be decided from the nomination list by the OSGeo selection committee.

The winner of the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software will be announced at the FOSS4G-Seoul event in September. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come.

It should be noted that past awardees and selection committee members are not eligible.

More info at the Sol Katz Award wiki page
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Sol_Katz_Award

Past Awardees:

2014: Gary Sherman
2013: Arnulf Christl
2012: Venkatesh Raghavan
2011: Martin Davis
2010: Helena Mitasova
2009: Daniel Morissette
2008: Paul Ramsey
2007: Steve Lime
2006: Markus Neteler
2005: Frank Warmerdam

Selection Committee 2015:

Jeff McKenna (chair)
Frank Warmerdam
Markus Neteler
Steve Lime
Paul Ramsey
Sophia Parafina
Daniel Morissette
Helena Mitasova
Martin Davis
Venkatesh Raghavan
Arnulf Christl
Gary Sherman

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Inofficial QGIS 2.8 RPMs for EPEL 7: Fedora 20, Fedora 21, Centos 7, Scientific Linux 7

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
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New stable release of GRASS GIS 7.0.0!

The GRASS GIS Development team has announced the release of the new major version GRASS GIS 7.0.0. This version provides many new functionalities including spatio-temporal database support, image segmentation, estimation of evapotranspiration and emissivity from satellite imagery, automatic line vertex densification during reprojection, more LIDAR support and a strongly improved graphical user interface experience. GRASS GIS 7.0.0 also offers significantly improved performance for many raster and vector modules: “Many processes that would take hours now take less than a minute, even on my small laptop!” explains Markus Neteler, the coordinator of the development team composed of academics and GIS professionals from around the world. The software is available for Linux, MS-Windows, Mac OSX and other operating systems.

Detailed announcement and software download:
https://grass.osgeo.org/news/42/15/GRASS-GIS-7-0-0/

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).

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Happy 9th Birthday, OSGeo!

Press release by Jeff McKenna, OSGeo Foundation President

9 years ago today was the first ever meeting of the OSGeo foundation, in Chicago U.S.A. (initial press release). Thanks to those passionately involved back then, and the thousands contributing since, now our community has expanded and has reached many countries all over world. Congratulations to everyone for continuing to share the passion for Open Source geospatial.

Here is a glimpse at some of the exciting events happening around the world this year:

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