OpenOSX Ships Grass GIS 5.0.0 CD
CROWLEY LAKE, Calif.–(OPENOSX-COM)–Oct. 16th, 2002– OpenOSX, a leading
provider of easy-to-use, world-class open-source software, today began
shipping their Grass GIS 5.0.0 CD.
Grass (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a complete
state-of-the-art geographical operating system. Grass is one of, if not the
most, complete and sophisticated open-source GIS’, which has now been in
development for more then twenty years. By the size of it’s code base Grass
is one the ten largest open-source projects in history.
This is the first stable version of Grass available for Mac OS X, and it
now includes a native Mac OS X Aqua interface on the Carbon port of the
Tcl/Tk interface. Grass and all required and optional libraries have have
been compiled using gcc 3.1 for at least a 20% performance gain over
previous builds.
The OpenOSX Grass GIS 5.0.0 CD will transform a Macintosh running Mac OS
10.2.x into a full-fledged GIS workstation in minutes with ease. The
OpenOSX CD offers Mac OS 10.2.x compatibility (including dual-processor
support), additional modules, along with numerous bug fixes.
With over 350 geo-spatial modules, Grass is the only real alternative to
ESRI ArcInfo GIS, which when similarly-configured will cost more than 400
times the cost per seat and is not supported on the Macintosh platform.
Grass GIS offers state of the art three-dimensional dynamic spatial
analysis and visualization. Users of OpenOSX Grass include NASA, USGS (U.S.
Geological Survey) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration).
Grass in combination with the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library, (GDAL)
can import more then forty popular GIS file formats including: GeoTiff,
Tiff, DXF, SDTS, DEM, Shape, ELAS, PNG, ARC, MIF, Tiger, Garmin, ASCII.
Some of Grass’ popular features include: ortho-rectification, Digital
Elevation Model creation and editing, projection and re-projection
capabilities, raster & vector data support in more then 120 projections,
shaded relief with 16-bit precision, geostatistics and spatial data
analysis, statistical analysis, 3D visualization and simulation modeling
capabilities.
The OpenOSX CD greatly simplifies installation and will install a long list
of all the required and optional libraries and programs for full
functionality. The CD is bundled with complete documentation and limited
installation support.
The owner of OpenOSX, Jeshua Lacock, who is the maintainer of the Mac OS X
port of Grass, has submitted the Grass 5.0.0 binaries for free downloading.
The files have been uploaded and will be available soon. The binaries do
not include support or the required or optional libraries that are
installed and configured by OpenOSX’s CD. The binaries may be downloaded
from Grass’ home Baylor University or from its development headquarters
(Istituto Trentino di Cultura) at:
(http://grass.itc.it/grass5/binary/mac_os_x/)
The OpenOSX Grass CD is US$50 and 6-month CD subscriptions are available
for US$120. More information about the OpenOSX Grass CD is available at
(http://OpenOSX.com/grass/).
OpenOSX, Inc. is a company dedicated to serving, and expanding, the
Macintosh community. Founded on the premise that many computer users are
intimidated by the UNIX command-line, OpenOSX committed itself to one
mission- bringing popular Unix software to both the “Unix-challenged” and
the seasoned, Mac inclined system administrator in a friendly, “Mac Like”
environment.