List of new features in GRASS 7

Graphical User Interface

• wxGUI improved (see ​here)

Display modules

• old display architecture removed
• new display architecture based on CAIRO and wxPython

Raster modules

• r.cost faster by orders of magnitude (10x - 100x)
• r.walk faster by orders of magnitude (10x - 1000x)
• r.watershed improved from G6.3 to G6.4 to G6.5 to G7: faster, less memory, floating point DEM support, MFD, clean stream extraction from MFD, segmented mode in G7 faster than in G6 by orders of magnitude (segmented mode in G7 only a bit slower than all-in-ram mode of G6.4)

Vector modules

• v.in.ogr faster for polygon-import, cleaner output

Libgis

• WPS support implemented in parser
• Libraster separated out into own library

Libraster

• Libraster separated out from libgis

Libvector

• Large File Support (LFS) added
• new spatial index, and spatial index kept in file: faster queries (>10x for large vectors), less memory for opening an existing vector
• cleaning functions 'break polygons' and 'snap lines' faster, less memory