Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach

I bought this book for 2 reasons: I had tried to use GRASS for vector data processing - with mixed success - in the past, and wanted to gain a better understanding of its capabilities; and also because I had just been assigned some fairly difficult elevation data processing, and raster-based spatial analysis was something I had little experience with. The book succeeds on both counts. It has well-written explanations of basic GIS principles, and also describes operations in enough detail that one can replicate them with their own data.While an amazing GIS application (I would actually call it a "GIS environment"), GRASS is not without its quirks. The book does a good job of steering a reader around potential roadblocks, and focuses on getting one going about the business of doing useful work. For example, they recommend using the GUI to set up a project, but then have you move back to using the command line interface (CLI) and X-based display window to accomplish the bulk of the work. This is brilliant. It showcases the ease with which GRASS commands can be chained together, and how other UNIX commands can be interleaved in the command sequences. Make no mistake, this book is written for an audience that is either familiar with, or willing to learn some UNIX. That alone makes it a refreshing change from many other books which feel apologetic when they stray away from the apparent comfort of a MS Windows-based GUI. GUI's are mentioned, but only briefly, and not in a way intended to be a useful guide. People looking for how to use GRASS via a GUI'd application would be better served by Gary Sherman's "Desktop GIS" book, which discusses how to use GRASS through the excellent Quantum GIS application.The book is logically laid out, and generally well written. There are a few small grammar quirks which tell me that the authors are not native English speakers, but they are minor, and don't actually cause the reader to stumble over any sections. Code sections are well-defined by the use of a different font, and so far I have not encountered any that contain errors. The book is well-illustrated, although at a cost of over $90, I take issue with the lack of color. This is a topic related to cartography after all, and color matters.I highly recommend this book to people who want to learn how to use GRASS effectively, or to teachers who want to structure a GIS course around an open source application. There is enough GIS theory presented to teach an intro-to-mid-level course on GIS. GRASS gets a bad rap from many in the GIS profession, and this book should allow most people to get over the initial humps and get started with it in an effective way. Hats off to Neteler and Mitasova.

I bought this book because I needed to use GRASS and R to produce maps with the results of statistical analysis. Though I am an experienced programmer, I had never used R neither any GIS. The tutorials available on the Internet were enough to learn R, but GRASS was a brick wall. After reading and trying the examples until page 200, I found myself able to work with raster and vectorial maps. Since I was completely illiterate on GIS, I learned in the book how the raster and vector data are organized, how to alter and combine maps and how to manage the vector databases. The sections about R and GRASS integration was very useful. Although it was of no particular interest to me, there are several sections about spatial analysis tools, 2D and 3D output, image processing, and GRASS programming. The book is not an exhaustive description of the commands, which should be found in the GRASS documentation. It is more like a hands-on tutorial that makes you familiar with the system and the commands, even if you are a novice. It will also be useful for people familiar with the graphic interface of other systems who need to start working on the command line.

As some of the other reviews here indicate, it's not that easy for a novice to get started using GRASS. I had trouble installing GRASS on my ubuntu machine; then I had a hard time getting the GUI to do anything. Once I got the book, and began using the command-line interface rather than the GUI, it went very smoothly. The book is expensive, but when I figure that the book probably saved me a couple of weeks of frustration, I think it was worth the price. For those who haven't looked at it yet, GRASS is very impressive; the tie-ins with R make this the obvious GIS choice for anyone focusing on spatial statistics.

Let me begin by saying I have only had this book for about a week, thus I have not read it a half a dozen or so times yet and fully digested it. That being said, I would like to focus on the three topics that cause me to rate this book as a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 - the writing, the illustration and the publishing.Looking through the table of contents for Neteler's and Mitasova's book it is obvious that this was a fairly ambitious project, however a review of the text reveals that many of the topics are glossed over with rather rudimentary coverage. Nevertheless, strictly based on the writing I would have rated this book a 4 on a 1 to 5 scale. There are too many typos to give it a 5. As far as the illustrations I would rate this book somewhere between 0 and 0.5. For crying out loud it is a GIS book that covers such topics as `displaying raster data and assigning a color table', `image processing', `managing channels and colors', `introduction to RGB and HIS color model' and `spectrum and remote sensing' AND THERE IS NOT ONE COLOR PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION IN THE WHOLE DANG BOOK! Many of the illustrations, graphics and photos that do appear in this book are of very poor quality and resolution and not well thought out! GIS and cartography people are very visually oriented, apparently the authors ignored their audience and Springer Publishing just did not care!As for the publishing of this tome I am VERY DISAPPOINTED with Springer Science + Business Media, LLC - the list price on this book iS $109 and it is VERY CHEAPLY MADE - the binding is shoddy, so much so, that I have my doubts that it will handle the 5 or 6 readings need to fully understand this book. As I previously mention the text contains typos and is poorly illustrated, this all reflects very badly on the publisher. The dissemination of well-appointed scientific knowledge does not appear to be one of Springer's priorities.I must admit I am rather new to the OS world, and please do not think I have forgotten that open source software is free, but this book feels like being back in the proprietary world - where producing a top-quality product takes a distant backseat to the typical corner cutting methodologies and the pursuit of the all mighty dollar.Yes I can see where you might be thinking this review is a bit melodramatic, and to that I would say this - $100 MAY NOT BE A LOT FOR YOU TO SPEND ON A BOOK, BUT IT IS FOR ME, I HAD TO BUDGET AND SAVE TO BUY THIS BOOK!

Good

This is likely a great technical reference book, but definitely not worth the price for such a poorly written low quality product.

Cette 3e édition est le livre indispensable à toutes personne voulant se lancer à corps perdu dans LE Systeme d'Information Géographique (SIG) libre GRASS' Ce livre permet de comprendre a un grand nombre d'exemples le fonctionnement des lignes de commande (colonne vertébrale de ce SIG)'ce livre couplé aux listes de diffusion, et au différent forum, est vous voilas près pour l'ascension ;-)Vous l'aurez compris, je vous le recommande

GRASS GISはフリーのGISでPCさえあれば誰でもすぐ利用できる点で優れている。また、Linuxをはじめ、OSXやWindouwsなどさまざまなプラットホームに対応しているところもよい。GRASS GISのホームページからは、マニュアルやチュートリアルをダウンロードできるが、中身は煩雑で初心者には不向きである。本書は英文で書かれているが、GRASSで何ができるのか、そのためにはどのような材料が必要で、どのような手順で操作するればよいのか、図表が多用され、わかりやすく書かれている。これからGRAS GISを学ぼうとする学部生や院生だけではなく、パソコンの苦手な教員にとっても役立つ一冊である。本書の購入をお勧めしたい。