The GRASS Development Team announces
We are pleased to announce the release of a new stable version of GRASS GIS 6.4.2. This release fixes bugs found in version 6.4.1 of the program and adds a number of new features. This release includes over 770 updates to the source code since 6.4.1. As a stable release series, the 6.4 line will enjoy long-term support and incremental enhancements while preserving backwards-compatibility with the entire GRASS 6 line.
The new wxPython graphical user interface (wxGUI) has been updated with many new features and tools. Python is now a fully supported scripting language, including an updated Python toolkit to simplify the authoring of personal scripts, support for NumPy based array calculations, and a Python application interface (API) for the GRASS C libraries. Additionally, Microsoft Windows support continues to mature. GRASS 6.4.2 debuts ten new modules, a new GUI cartographic composer tool, a new GUI object-oriented modeling environment, an interactive Python shell, and improved infrastructure for installing and managing community supplied add-on modules.
(wxGUI)
mlist()
replaced by
mlist_grouped()
extra/n_arrow3, geology/strike_half-bowtie, geology/half-arrow_l
eft, geology/half-arrow_right
(view)population_dens
(MS-Windows)
(Mac OSX)
(All)
make
versions older than 3.81A detailed description of changes and a list of fixed bugs can be found in the GRASS 6.4.2 Release News page. For a comprehensive list of changes see the full GRASS ChangeLog file.
The new source code is available now along with selected binary packages.
The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) and geospatial analysis toolkit. For nearly three decades, GRASS has provided powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines in a single integrated software suite. GRASS includes tools for spatial modeling of raster and vector data, visualization, the management and analysis of geospatial information, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and publication-quality hardcopy maps. GRASS has now been translated into twenty languages and supports an extensive array of data formats.
GRASS differs from many other GIS software packages used in the academic and professional worlds in that it is developed and distributed by users for users, mostly on a volunteer basis. Its code and spatial processing algorithms are open and transparent, and the software is distributed free of charge. The source code is also freely available, allowing for immediate customization, examination of the underlying algorithms, addition of new features, and faster identification and patching of bugs.
Users are encouraged to study, customize, extend, improve, and (if necessary) diagnose and modify the inner workings of any part of the program. We believe that scientific progress depends on the reproducibility of results, which in turn depends on the unhindered ability of the user to know, evaluate, double-check, and learn from all algorithms and methodologies used in the process of their work.
The GRASS software includes over 435 built-in analysis modules and more than 100 community supplied add-on modules and toolboxes. It can be downloaded for free from the main GRASS website at http://grass.osgeo.org, or from many local mirrors worldwide. In addition to the extensive documentation which comes with the software, our Wiki collaborative help system contains a wealth of user supplied tips and tricks, tutorials, and guides. On the wiki you\’ll find information about import and export of a diverse range of data formats and interoperability with such software as Quantum GIS, MapServer, PostGIS, R Statistics, GMT (journal quality cartography), Matlab, Paraview 3D visualization, and more.
GRASS is currently used around the world in many academic and commercial settings as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. It runs on a variety of popular hardware platforms and is Free and open-source software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. While its most popular role is as a desktop GIS, GRASS includes native support for multi-user collaboration suitable for research team and classroom environments, or can be used embedded for back-end server jobs (including HPC) with no user interaction at all.
We are a founding member of The Open Source Geospatial
Foundation (OSGeo), a non-profit legal entity
which has enjoyed extraordinary growth in recent years and brings
together many of today’s best geospatial software projects under a
single umbrella. We expect that this formal infrastructure will
guarantee that the GRASS community will be well supported and vibrant
far into the future.
GNU/Linux, Mac OS X/Darwin, Microsoft Windows (native using MinGW or
with full UNIX support via Cygwin), Sun Solaris (SPARC/Intel),
Silicon Graphics Irix, HP-UX, DEC-Alpha, AIX, the BSD family,
iPAQ/Linux and other UNIX compliant platforms. GRASS runs on both 32
and 64 bit systems with large data file (>2GB) support for most key
modules and has been ported to run on both handheld tablets and high
performance super-computers.
For details on GRASS software capabilities please refer to the
introduction page on the
GRASS website and the rich documentation and tutorials held in the
Wiki collaborative help system. For a
complete list of commands available in GRASS 6.4.2 see the online
manuals
collection and the GRASS 6.4 module
synopsis.
We are always looking for testers, code developers, and technical writers to help us maintain and accelerate the development cycle. The GRASS GIS project is developed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (the GPL) in the open by volunteers the world over.
Experimental work on the source code of the future GRASS 7 series continues to go well and is the main focus of current development. Bug fixes, selected non-invasive improvements, and new GUI tools will continue to be back-ported into the 6.4 line as necessary.
Release history: