gvSIG CE and the GRASS GIS plug-in
Advanced Archaeological Training W1
Organiser | Benjamin DUCKE, Germany
The free and open source GRASS GIS (http://grass.osgeo.org) offers a plethora of tools for archaeological data analysis. This, in combination with the software’s superior performance, 3D capabilities and reliability, should make GRASS GIS the spatial analysis platform of choice for archaeologists and other social scientists. Unfortunately, the software also has a steep learning curve, which means that many potential users have shied away from it in the past.
However, with gvSIG CE (http://www.gvsigce.org), we now have a user-friendly, free desktop GIS that provides seamless access to GRASS GIS’ geoprocessing modules.
Participants of this workshop will get a hands-on introduction to the use of GRASS GIS (version 6.4) from within gvSIG CE. We will look into a number of powerful GRASS modules and how to run them on input data in common formats (Shapefiles and GeoTIFF images). We will also look into batch processing large amounts of data and building complex processing flows with the graphical modeller. If time allows(!), a (very short) introduction to writing simple shell scripts for automated data analysis will also be given.
Notes to participants:
You will need to bring your own computer.
All software used in this workshop can be downloaded freely from http://www.gvsigce.org for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems (64 bit only!). This will include a version of GRASS GIS. You do not need to download or install any additional software. Please make sure to download and test the most recent version of gvSIG CE on your device before attending the workshop.
This workshop will focus on geoprocessing tasks and only very little time can be spent explaining the basic usage of gvSIG CE or even general GIS concepts. Therefore, you are required to have some basic GIS skills.
If you have worked with a software such as MapInfo, ArcView or QGIS before, then you will have very little trouble getting started with gvSIG CE. Otherwise, please make yourself acquainted with gvSIG CE before the start of the workshop.