List of new features in GRASS 7

The development of GRASS GIS 7 was started in April 2008 (r31142).

Graphical User Interface

• wxGUI improved (see ​here)
  • Advanced GRASS command console
  • Graphical modeler
  • Improved ​wxNviz
• wxWidgets version of ximgview
• Tcl/Tk stuff dropped in favour of wxPython
• New GUI modules
  • G7:g.gui.animation: new
  • G7:g.gui.dbmgr: new
  • G7:g.gui.gmodeler:new
  • G7:g.gui.iclass: new
  • G7:g.gui.mapswipe: new
  • G7:g.gui.psmap: new
  • G7:g.gui.rlisetup: new
  • G7:g.gui.vdigit: new

Display modules

• old display architecture removed including related modules
• new display architecture based on CAIRO and wxPython
• G7:ximgview: new

General modules

• G7:g.cairocomp: new
• G7:g.mapset: new flag to print current mapset
• G7:g.ppmtopng: new
• G7:g.region: new flag to export region bounding box in WMS style

Image processing

• G7:i.albedo: new
• G7:i.aster.toar: new
• G7:i.biomass: new
• i.class: rewritten in ​wxGUI
• G7:i.cca: supports now much more raster maps for canonical analyses (multi-spectral (8) -> hyper-spectral (thousands)), converted from Fortran style to C-style
• G7:i.eb.eta: new
• G7:i.eb.evapfr: new
• G7:i.eb.h_sebal01: new
• G7:i.eb.netrad: new
• G7:i.eb.soilheatflux: new
• G7:i.emissivity: new
• G7:i.evapo.mh: new
• G7:i.evapo.pm: new
• G7:i.evapo.pt: new
• G7:i.evapo.time: new
• G7:i.fft and G7:i.ifft: In GRASS 6.x, the only operation which can be performed upon the FFT data is a binary mask; a given component can be included or excluded, but not scaled. In GRASS 7.0, the frequency coefficients are saved as raster maps, so they can be manipulated with e.g. G7:r.mapcalc. The main constraint is that both i.fft and i.ifft require the data to fit into memory. Eliminating this requirement boils down to transposing a large array efficiently.
• G7:i.latlong: new
• i.fusion.brovey: removed, functionality provided by G7:i.pansharpen
• G7:i.landsat.toar: new (from addons)
• G7:i.landsat.acca: new (from addons)
• G7:i.modis.qc: new
• i.ortho.photo: rewritten as G7:i.ortho.rectify: restructured and optimized; batch job capable
• G7:i.pansharpen: new
• G7:i.sunhours: new
• G7:i.vi: new

Raster modules

• Large File Support (LFS) globally enabled
• G7:r.colors.out: new
• G7:r.cost faster by orders of magnitude (10x - 100x)
• G7:r.external.out: new
• G7:r.fillnulls: fill each hole separately thus improving quality and speed
• G7:r.gwflow/!G7:r3.gwflow: Groundwater flow module update
• G7:r.in.lidar: new
• G7:r.in.wms: new implementation
• G7:r.mapcalc: white space is needed before/after the = sign (r.mapcalc "outmap = inmap"); use pthreads for parsing
• G7:r.neighbours: added new option to process only marked cells (i.e: selective elevation map improvement)
• G7:r.pack, G7:r.unpack: new
• G7:r.resamp.filter: new - resamples raster map layers using an analytic kernel
• G7:r.solute.transport: new; New module to compute the solute transport of groundwater in porous media using an implicit finite volume approach
• G7:r.statistics2: new
• G7:r.statistics3: new
• G7:r.uslek: new
• G7:r.usler: new
• G7:r.walk faster by orders of magnitude (10x - 1000x)
• G7: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.

Vector modules

• Large File Support (LFS) globally enabled
• G7:v.kernel faster by orders of magnitude (10x - 1000x)
• G7:v.krige: new
• G7:v.mkgrid: breaks are breaks not number of segments; significant speedup
• G7:v.net.distance: new
• G7:v.net.bridge: new
• G7:v.net.spanningtree: new
• G7:v.net.flow: new
• G7:v.net.connectivity: new
• G7:v.net.timetable: new
• G7:v.net.components: new
• G7:v.net.allpairs: new
• G7:v.net.centrality: new
• G7:v.in.ogr faster for polygon-import, cleaner output.
• G7:v.out.ogr: reversed functionality of -c flag to preserve island by default.
• G7:v.in.lidar: new
• G7:v.colors: rewrite in C, support for vector color tables
• G7:v.colors.out: new
• G7:v.overlay: up to 40x faster for large vectors (40,000+ lines in ainput)
• G7:v.out.postgis: new

3D raster modules

• G7:r3.colors: new
• G7:r3.colors.out: new

Scripts

• All Bash scripts converted to Python
• Initialization scripts also based on Python

GRASS 7 Library changes

Libccmath

• new library for numerical functions

Libdbmi

• SQLite is now default database driver
• Added support for OFTDate, OFTTime, OFTDateTime

Libgis

• WPS support implemented in parser (c, c++, python, shell)
• Libraster separated out into own library
• Store metadata in $HOME/.grass7 directory

Libgmath

• Implementation of BLAS level 1,2 and 3 functions which are in use by all gmath solver, the gpde library and many modules.
• ATLAS wrapper for BLAS level 1 functions (level 2, and 3 are work in progress)

Libosgf

• WIP in OGSF - feature styling rewrite that will allow to assign custom (e.g. attribute based) style to points AND lines in NVIZ (might be extended to polys and any 3D vectors too).

Libraster

• Libraster separated out from libgis, refactored

Libvector

• Large File Support (LFS) added
• New topology, requires rebuilding topology with G7:v.build (G7:v.build.all) when switching between GRASS 6.x and GRASS 7
  • New spatial index, and spatial index kept in file: faster queries (>10x for large vectors), less memory for opening an existing vector
  • New main topology: reduced memory and disk space requirements, generally faster processing
• Cleaning function 'break polygons' faster, less memory
• Cleaning function 'snap lines' faster and modifications are minimized: a vertex is snapped to the closest anchor vertex, not to the first anchor vertex found which might not be the closest anchor vertex.
• Simple Features API/OGR read/write support (ongoing)
• Support for color tables (see lib/vector/Vlib/color_*.c files)

User Manual - Documentation

• Use Python to generate ​HTML docs

API improvements

• Programmer's manual cleanup: ​http://grass.osgeo.org/programming7
• Improved ​Python API
  • read/write GRASS rasters to/from NumPy
• libgis supports the automatic generation of a WPS 1.0.0 process description XML document for each module (c, c++, python, shell)
• Function name changes from GRASS 6 to GRASS 7: See Grass7/RasterLib/ListOfFunctions etc.

Source Code Portability

• All shell scripts have been rewritten in Python
• MS-Windows portability improved, new spawn functions (backported to 6.5 and 6.4), global LFS available by default
• MacOSX portability improved

Removed modules

Some modules present in GRASS 6 have been removed due to architecture changes or replacements:

• d.ask, d.colors, d.extend, d.extract, d.frame, d.mapgraph, d.measure, d.menu, d.save, d.what.rast, d.what.vect, d.zoom (old display architecture decommissioned)
• d.histogram: integrated in wxGUI
• g.ask: use g.findfile
• g.setproj: use Location Wizard or 'g.proj -c' (state plane by county selection needs to be ported)
• i.points: new graphical version in wxGUI
• i.class, i.ortho.photo, i.vpoints (need to be ported; old display architecture decommissioned)
• raster:
  • r.average, r.median, r.sum merged into G7:r.statistics, G7:r.statistics2, G7:r.statistics3
  • r.bilinear merged into G7:r.resamp.interp
  • r.digit (needs to be ported; old display architecture decommissioned, wxRdigit under development)
  • r.le.patch, r.le.pixel, r.le.setup, r.le.trace: replaced by G7:r.li.*
  • r.terraflow.short (FP version is sufficient)
• v.digit (new wxPython digitizer)

Renamed modules

• nviz_cmd -> G7:m.nviz.image
• d.nviz -> G7:m.nviz.script
• g.transform -> G7:m.transform

Renamed options

Some parameter names (options) have been renamed to achieve greater consistency. User scripts from GRASS 6 may need minor updates to run with GRASS 7 according to the changes listed below:

Global module changes

• fs= (field separator) -> separator=

Display module changes

• G7:d.correlate
  • layers -> map
• G7:d.erase
  • color -> bgcolor
  • background -> bgcolor
• G7:d.rast
  • catlist and vallist options merged into new values option
  • overlay flag inverted to new opaque flag
• G7:d.rast.leg
  • rast -> raster
• G7:d.vect
  • wcolumn -> width_column
  • wscale -> width_scale
  • rot_column -> rotation_column

Database management module changes

• G7:db.out.ogr
  • db_table -> table

General map management module changes

• G7:g.mapsets
  • addmapset,removemapset -> operation
  • measure -> method
• G7:g.pnmcomp
  • background -> bgcolor
• G7:g.region
  • n -> north
  • s -> south
  • e -> east
  • w -> west
  • t -> top
  • b -> bottom

Image processing module changes

• G7:i.atcorr
  • iimg -> input
  • iscl -> range
  • ialt -> elevation
  • ivis -> visibility
  • icnd -> parameters
  • oimg -> output
  • oscl -> rescale
  • input -> map
  • input -> map
• G7:i.image.mosaic
  • images -> input
• G7:i.in.spotvgt
  • file -> input
  • rast -> output
• G7:i.in.gns
  • file -> input
  • vect -> output
• G7:i.spectral
  • raster -> input
  • coord -> east_north
• G7:i.tasscap
  • outprefix -> output_prefix

Raster module changes

• G7:r.basins.fill
  • c_map -> cnetwork
  • t_map -> tnetwork
  • result -> output
• G7:r.blend
  • output -> output_prefix
• G7:r.colors.stddev
  • input -> map
• G7:r.external
  • the -r flag has been removed, approximate range is not ok
• G7:r.fill.dir
  • input -> elevation
  • elevation -> depressionless
• G7:r.flow
  • elevin -> elevation
  • aspin -> aspect
  • barin -> barrier
  • flout -> flowline
  • lgout -> flowpath
  • dsout -> density
• G7:r.li.*
  • map -> input
• G7:r.out.tiff
  • -t flag -> -w
• G7:r.plane
  • name -> output
• G7:r.reclass
  • use of rules parameter is mandatory in grass 7.0, also when the reclass rules are piped through another program (use rules=-)
• G7:r.topmodel
  • belevation -> basin_elevation
• G7:r.sim.sediment
  • elevin -> elevation
  • dxin -> dx
  • dyin -> dy
  • detin -> det
  • tranin -> tran
  • tauin -> tau
  • manin -> man
  • maninval -> man_value
• G7:r.sim.water
  • elevin -> elevation
  • dxin -> dx
  • dyin -> dy
  • rain_val -> rain_value
  • infil -> infil
  • infil_val -> infil_value
  • manin -> man
  • manin_val -> man_value
• G7:r.surf.area
  • input -> map
  • input -> map
• G7:r.texture
  • measure -> method
• G7:r.to.vect
  • feature -> type
• G7:r.uslek
  • usle_k -> output
• G7:r.water.outlet
  • drainage -> input
  • basin -> output
• G7:r.what
  • east_north -> coordinates
• G7:r.distance
  • maps -> map

Vector module changes

• G7:v.edit
  • t -> b
  • measure -> method
• G7:v.info
  • layer=integer -> layer=string
• G7:v.in.e00
  • file -> input
  • vect -> output
• G7:v.in.wfs
  • wfs -> url
  • input -> map
• G7:v.out.ogr: the meaning of the -c flag has been reverted in GRASS 7 because the default must be to export only features with categories in the selected layer (the user needs to select a GRASS vector layer for v.out.ogr which will be translated to an OGR layer). If features without category are exported, the logic of matching a GRASS vector layer to a OGR layer is violated. This is particularly true for areas with islands which are in simple feature terminology polygons with holes.
• G7:v.rast.stats
  • colprefix -> column_prefix
  • input -> map
• G7:v.what.vect
  • vector -> map
  • qvector -> qmap