Call for Presentations Geospatial devroom @FOSDEM 2016

FOSDEM is a free and non-commercial event bringing together about 5000 developers in Brussels, Belgium. The goal is to provide open source software developers and communities a place to meet and share thoughts. The participation is free of charge, although donations are welcome. The next edition will take place the last weekend of January 30 - 31 2016. This year for the second time there will be a Geospatial devroom on Sunday 31/1/2016, organised by members of the OSGeo, Locationtech and OpenStreetMap communities.

Geospatial technology is becoming rapidly mainstream. The idea underpinning the geospatial devroom is bringing together developers with different backgrounds to disclose the opportunities offered by cutting-edge open source geospatial technologies. Due to the success of last year's geospatial devroom, a Belgium local chapter of OSGeo, OSGeo.be was founded, and is now taking part of the organisation of the devroom as driving community.

The Geospatial devroom is the place to talk about the state of the art of open, geo-related data, free and open source geospatial software and its ecosystem. This includes standards and tools, e.g. spatial databases, online mapping tools, geospatial services, used for collecting, storing, delivering, analysing, and visualizing geodata. We welcome submissions about: 

• Web and desktop GIS applications

• Interoperable geospatial web services and specifications

• Collection of data using sensors/drones/satellites

• Open hardware for geospatial applications

• Geo-analytic algorithms/libraries

• Geospatial extensions for classical databases (indexes, operations) and dedicated databases

• Collaborative editing/versioning of geodata

• Big geodata, scalable GIS applications

• Volunteered Geograpic information - Crowdsourced data

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL FOR A TALK

Are you thrilled to present your work to other open source developers? Would you like to run a discussion? Any other ideas? Please submit your proposal using the Pentabarf event planning tool at:

https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM16

Make sure to select the 'Geospatial devroom' as  'Track'. Please, specify in the notes if you prefer for your presentation either a short timeslot (lightning talks ~10 minutes) or a long timeslot (20 minutes presentation + discussion). However, note that time slots are indicative and will be assigned according to the needs of the session.

The DEADLINE for submissions is Tuesday **1st December 2015**. Notification of acceptance will be sent to the Authors by Friday 11/12/2015 at the latest.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the organisers of the devroom at fosdem-geospatial@gisky.be! Feel free to forward this CfP to anyone potentially interested.

Johan Van de Wauw

Margherita Di Leo

Astrid Emde

Anne Ghisla

Martin Hammitzsch

Andy Petrella 

Dirk Frigne

Olivier Courtin

Thomas Gratier

How to reproject shapefile to import in GRASS

Here's a simple tutorial to make a CRS transformation of a shapefile before importing, to match the CRS of the location you have in GRASS.

Step 1 - See if you need coordinates conversion

Start GRASS 7, enter your location. In the Layer Manager, go to File -> Import vector data -> Common import formats.
Select Source type - Directory.
Browse the directory where the vector file you want to import is located.
A list of vector layers will load (can be one single vector). Under "Projection" you can see either "Yes" or "No". If you see "Yes", it means that the vector you want to import matches with the location projection, and you can proceed importing it immediately. Otherwise follow the steps listed below.

Step 2 - Export CRS information from GRASS location

 

Very easy. In GRASS, run the command

g.proj -wef > target.prj

This will export a text file called target.prj into your home folder.

Step 3 - Reproject shapefile and import in GRASS

The reprojection can be done using GDAL. The vector_source is the vector file that you want to reproject. The vector_target is the reprojected one. Pay attention to the order you put them in. When you are ready, shoot this command in the terminal:

ogr2ogr -t_srs target.prj -s_srs vector_source.prj  vector_target.shp vector_source.shp

Voila. You're done. You can now import your vector_target.shp file in the GRASS location.

Image segmentation in GRASS GIS

Image segmentation is the process used to detect homogeneous objects in remote sensed images. This process is useful as a first step for classification. There are several tools around, both free and proprietary, that implement different algorithms. In these days I'm testing some of them and wanted to share some impressions.
To start I have selected my favourite GIS: GRASS. I'm using GRASS 7.1. The segmentation tool that I used is implemented in a module called i.segment, that was developed by Eric Momsen of North Dakota State University, during his Google Summer of Code in 2012.
The segmentation is performed on a group of bands and not on a single band, it means that the user can select the most significant ones in respect to the features she's investigating. The bands can be grouped using the command i.group (Shapiro, 2011).
The algorithm is iterative and can be time-consuming on large images. The parameter "memory" can be used to speed up the process if the machine  has a decent memory.
The main parameter worth to play with is the threshold parameter. The larger the threshold, the more objects are merged together. If the image is big, a useful tip is to test the threshold value on a smaller region then apply it to the region at large.
Another fantastic tools comes from Pietro Zambelli and is called i.segment.hierarchical (available in add-ons). It performs hierarchical segmentation for different threshold values, using the result of the previous run as a seed for the next one. It optimizes the computational time by subdividing the image in tiles and processing them in parallel.
The results of segmentation for increasing threshold values are shown hereinafter.
Threshold = 0.01

Threshold = 0.05

Threshold = 0.1

Threshold = 0.2

Call For papers Geospatial devroom @FOSDEM

Please forward!

FOSDEM is a free open source event bringing together about 5000 developers in Brussels, Belgium. The goal is to provide open source software developers and communities a place to meet at. The next edition will take place the weekend 31/1 -> 1/2/2015. This year for the first time there will be a geospatial devroom on Sunday 1/2/2015!

Geospatial technology becomes more and more part of mainstream IT. The idea is to bring together people with different backgrounds to better explain and understand the opportunities Geospatial can offer. This devroom will host topics explaining the state of the art of geospatial technology, and how it can be used amongst other projects.

The geospatial devroom is the place to talk about open, geo-related data and software and their ecosystem. This includes standards and tools, e.g. for spatial databases, and online mapping, geospatial services, used for collecting, storing, delivering, analysing, and visualizing puposes. Typical topics that will be covered are:

• Web and desktop GIS applications

• Interoperable geospatial web services and specifications

• Collection of data using sensors/drones/satellites

• Open hardware for geospatial applications

• Geo-analytic algorithms/libraries

• Geospatial extensions for classical databases (indexes, operations)

• Dedicated databases

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR TALK PROPOSAL

Are you thrilled to present your work to other open source developers? Would you like to run a discussion? Any other ideas? Please submit your proposal at the Pentabarf event planning tool at:

https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM15

When submitting your talk in Pentabarf, make sure to select the 'Geospatial devroom' as  'Track'. Please specify in the notes if you prefer for your presentation a short timeslot (lightning talks ~10 minutes) or a long timeslot (20 minutes presentation + discussion).

The DEADLINE for submissions is **1st December 2014**

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the organisers of the devroom at fosdem-geospatial@gisky.be!

Johan Van de Wauw

Margherita Di Leo

Astrid Emde

Anne Ghisla

Julien Fastré

Martin Hammitzsch

Andy Petrella 

Dirk Frigne

Gael Musquet

A new tool for (INSPIRE) metadata management in GRASS GIS

For those who deal with geospatial data and GRASS GIS, and need to fulfill the requirements of the INSPIRE directive for metadata, one of the most exciting outcomes of the Google Summer of Code 2014 [1] is the INSPIRE metadata support developed by Matej Krejci. This is the first step towards full metadata management through GRASS, and covers the editing part.

Purpose

The module allows to create / load / edit / export / validate xml metadata with (currently) two profiles:

• Basic GRASS profile
• INSPIRE profile

You can select either of them in the drop-down menu on the top left corner.

Metadata map editor

In the radio button on the top left corner, you can select either Metadata map editor or Metadata external editor. The former will modify the metadata of the maps currently present in the mapset. You can visualize them in the tree on the left hand side.

Working directory

The working directory (workdir button on the top right) is where you wish your metadata to be saved, or where you want to browse metadata from (in case you are using the Metadata external editor). The default setting is a folder called metadata stored in the current mapset.

Editing the metadata

Select the map you wish to create the metadata for. Selecting Edit will open your metadata. You will notice that some of the fields are already filled. These information, such as the date of creation, resolution and so on and so forth, are reported as detected by GRASS. You can always modify them though. 

Validation

Once your metadata is complete, you can validate it against the INSPIRE requirements, pushing the Validate button at the bottom. If you haven't filled some of the fields properly, like in this example, you will get a series of error that need to be fixed in the various tabs of the editor.

Requirements

The module wx.metadata requires GRASS 7.1 and has external dependencies:

• OWSLib development version

git clone git://github.com/geopython/OWSLib.git
cd OWSLib && sudo python setup.py install

• Jinja templates

git clone git://github.com/mitsuhiko/jinja2.git
cd jinja2 && sudo python setup.py install

Installation

GRASS> g.extension wx.metadata

Launch it as:

GRASS> g.gui.metadata

Notes

[1] Google Summer of Code is the program with which Google supports Open Source software, and encourages students to join and start contributing to open source communities. In fact, students selected by mentors from OS organizations, are paid a stipend to develop a project that has been identified by the community. During the "summer of code", students are constantly supported by their mentors and the OS community. OSGeo, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation, has been participating to GSoC since 2007. OSGeo serves as an umbrella organization for several OS Geospatial projects. 

Please support the upcoming Vienna Code Sprint 2014

In the occasion of the upcoming Vienna Code Sprint 2014, the GRASS GIS Project Steering Committee decided earlier this year to  officially join this code sprint, considering it as a great opportunity  for joint activities. More than 60+ developers from the most important OSGeo project communities will be joining the event.

While the GRASS developers are donating their valuable time, the community of enthusiast users (you!) may contribute with donations,  even symbolic, that will be used to cover out-of-pocket expenses of the  participants. Companies can also decide to sponsor specific tasks!  Please don't hesitate to contact us (or Markus Neteler, neteler@osgeo.org) for further details.

As usual, all of the work done in the community sprint will be directly  contributed back to the GRASS project for the benefit of everyone who  uses it. Our scope at the sprint is to publish a first release candidate  of the stable GRASS GIS 6.4.4 version as well as a tech preview release of GRASS GIS 7.

For your convenience, here our easy-to-use Paypal button:

http://grass.osgeo.org/donations/

For our alternative bank transfer option, please contact Martin Landa (landa.martin@gmail.com)

Thanks for your support!

The GRASS Developers Team

About GRASS GIS

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (http://grass.osgeo.org/), commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

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VERSIONE ITALIANA

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Sostieni il Code Sprint di Vienna 2014

In occasione dell'imminente Code Sprint di Vienna 2014, all'inizio di quest'anno il Comitato Direttivo (PSC) di GRASS ha deciso di aderire ufficialmente all'evento, considerata la grande opportunita` per attivita` comuni. Piu` di 60 sviluppatori dei piu`importanti progetti OSGeo parteciperanno all'evento.

Mentre gli sviluppatori di GRASS donano il loro prezioso tempo, gli utenti appassionati (tu!) possono contribuire con donazioni, anche simboliche, che verranno utilizzate per coprire le spese vive dei partecipanti.

Le aziende possono anche decidere di sponsorizzare un compito specifico! Per saperne di piu` non esitate a contattarci (o Markus Neteler neteler@osgeo.org). 

Come sempre, tutto il lavoro svolto durante lo Sprint verra` direttamente messo a disposizione del progetto GRASS, per il beneficio dell'intera comunita` di utenti. 

L'obiettivo per lo Sprint e` quello di pubblicare la prima versione candidata stabile di GRASS GIS 6.4.4 e la versione di anteprima tecnologica di GRASS GIS 7. 

Potete utilizzare il comodo pulsante Paypal all'indirizzo: http://grass.osgeo.org/donations/

Per opzioni di pagamento alternative, potete contattare Martin Landa (landa.martin@gmail.com).

Grazie per il vostro sostegno!

Il Team degli Sviluppatori di GRASS

The 4th GRASS Community Sprint is approaching!

I would like to remind you that the next GRASS Community Sprint is approaching!

Are you considering to participate in person? Please sign up to the wiki page!

Have you been using GRASS GIS within your company and/or for your daily tasks, and really want to express your satisfaction and give back to these terrific software's developers? Are you willing to (symbolically) sponsor specific tasks which you are particularly interested in?

If yes, don't think twice and become a sponsor!

Please contact me/Martin Landa/Markus Neteler for further details.

cheers,

Margherita

PS The Community Sprint is a get-together for members and supporters of GRASS and related OSGeo projects to make decisions and tackle larger problems. Developers and contributors are donating their valuable time, so it would be great if in-kind funding can be made available from within the community to cover out-of-pocket expenses. All of the work that takes place at thecommunity sprint will be directly contributed back into the GRASS project to the benefit of everyone who uses it. 

Become a sponsor of GRASS Community Sprint 2013 !

The GRASS GIS team will organize a GRASS Developer and Power User Meeting, aka 'GRASS Community Sprint' from 2-7 Feb, 2013 [1]. The Community Sprint is a get-together for members and supporters of GRASS and related OSGeo projects to make decisions and tackle larger problems. For this meeting, we welcome people committed to improving the GRASS GIS project and the interfaces to QGIS, GDAL, PostGIS, R statistics, Sextante, gvSIG, OGC Services (esp. WPS) and more. This includes developers, documenters, bug reporters, translators and others.

The outcomes of past editions include wxGUI bugfixing, GRASS 7 time series and 4D data management, translations, implementation of new modules and lots of bughunting, testing, and bugfixing. For interoperability, the new QGIS-Sextante-GRASS interface was completely overhauled and updated. Developers also had discussions on broad topics like GRASS GIS usage on mobile devices, creation of a visual guide to GRASS GIS usage and much more. See [2,3] for details.

The third GRASS Community Sprint is a great occasion for you to support the development of GRASS. With your contribution you will enable more developers to meet. The Community Sprint is an important opportunity for the GRASS developers to discuss and collaboratively resolve bugs, plan the direction for the project and work on new features. Developers and contributors are donating their valuable time, so it would be great if in-kind funding can be made available from within the community to cover out-of-pocket expenses. 

All of the work that takes place at the community sprint will be directly contributed back into the GRASS project to the benefit of everyone who uses it. It is also possible to (symbolically) sponsor specific tasks in which you may be interested in.

This year the Italian OSGeo Local Chapter (GFOSS.it [4]) is in charge of gathering all the donations. Donations should be addressed to:

"Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera"

Details of bank account:

IBAN: IT32J0335901600100000015079

BIC: BCITITMX 

BANCA PROSSIMA S.P.A. Via Verdi Ang. Via Manzoni - 20121 Milano

Any further question about donations should be addressed to Luca Delucchi <lucadeluge at gmail.com>

On behalf of the GRASS Community I would like to thank you in advance and to wish you happy new year.

Best regards

Margherita Di Leo

for the GRASS PSC

[1] http://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_Community_Sprint_Genova_2013

[2] http://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_Community_Sprint_Prague_2012

[3] http://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_Community_Sprint_Prague_2011

[4] http://www.gfoss.it/drupal/

Invitation to donate for the GRASS GIS Community Sprint in February 2013

From the GRASS-announce mailing list:

---%<---

The GRASS GIS team will organize a GRASS GIS Community Sprint from 2-7 Feb, 2013 in Genova, Italy. The sprint is at the same time of the "XIV Meeting degli Utenti Italiani GRASS e Gfoss" at the University of Genova.

We would like to invite you to financially support this upcoming Community Sprint! The past sprints have been very successful as we expect for the upcoming one.

Important Web page:
http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_Community_Sprint_Genova_2013

Please consider to donate:
http://grass.osgeo.org/donations/

Background info: The GRASS Community Sprint is a great occasion for folks to support the development by actively contributing to the source code, manuals or likewise. The community sprint is a get-together for GRASS project members and supporters and related OSGeo projects
to take decisions and tackle larger problems. For this meeting, we welcome people committed to improving the GRASS GIS project and the interfaces to QGIS, GDAL, PostGIS, R-stats. Sextante. gvSIG, OGC Services and more. This includes developers, documenters, bug reporters, translators and other OSGeo supporters. Not only the "C Tribe" will be addressed but also Python or whatever the participants prefer.

Thanks in advance,

Markus Neteler
-- 
GRASS GIS PSC Chair
http://grass.osgeo.org/

Corsi di formazione a Potenza

L'Organismo di Ricerca EXO, in collaborazione con il Dottorato di Ricerca Internazionale in "Bio-EcoSistemi e BioTecnologie" dell'Università degli Studi della Basilicata, organizza i seguenti Corsi:

- Software liberi per l'analisi di dati ambientali (18-22 giugno)
- Metodologia statistica per la ricerca scientifica (25-29 giugno)

Il Corso di "Software liberi per l'analisi di dati ambientali", nella introduzione delle nozioni di base affronterà le eventuali problematiche legate all’installazione dei software sui diversi pc e sui diversi sistemi operativi.
I corsisti verranno guidati e stimolati all’interazione con i differenti tools (GRASS, Qgis e R) presentati in maniera da acquisire familiarità con gli stessi e riuscire a reperire tutte le informazioni necessarie ad eseguire la tipologia di analisi desiderata.
Particolare enfasi sarà posta sull’analisi di dati spaziali in applicazioni di modellazione ambientale, di classificazione di immagini satellitari, nella realizzazione di statistiche esplorative e nell’applicazione di algoritmi di interpolazione dei dati.

Il Corso di "Statistica" rappresenta un corso di base che introduce alla trattazione di dati sperimentali. Il Corso ha l’ambizione di porre le basi scientifiche per un corretto approccio alla pianificazione di esperimenti, presentazione ed elaborazione di dati.    
Il Corso, svolto in un laboratorio dedicato, si prefigge anche di fornire alcune abilità informatiche attraverso l’avvio all’utilizzo del software R che consente di affrontare con esempi gli argomenti trattati. Gli Studenti, inoltre, seguendo le procedure indicate, potranno svolgere autonomamente elaborazioni statistiche.

Ulteriori info.

Nuovi corsi GIS Open Source a Matera

Diotima srl in collaborazione con GEOFEMengineering è lieta di annunciare che tra il 4 ed il 12 giugno prossimi si terrà a Matera il corso

STRUMENTI GIS OPEN SOURCE E SOLUZIONI LIBERE PER L’OFFICE E L’INGEGNERIA.

Il corso è rivolto sia al mondo enterprise che a quello accademico ed alle Pubbliche Amministrazioni.
I professionisti, i ricercatori ed i tecnici della Pubblica Amministrazione che, per le proprie attività professionali e di ricerca, necessitano di strumenti software quali Office, Autocad ed Arcgis, potranno beneficiare dall’apprendere l’uso di strumenti free e open source per l’impresa (GNU/Linux Enterprise) e per l’analisi ambientale (strumenti GIS e di analisi statistica e geostatistica) seguendo un percorso formativo mirato al raggiungimento di competenze pratiche immediatamente spendibili in ambiti di produzione.

Il corso sarà organizzato in 4 moduli didattici che potranno essere frequantati singolarmente dai partecipanti:

• Corso GNU/Linux enterprise
• Corso GIS di base
• Corso di QGIS e GRASS GIS
• Corso di applicazioni di statistica/geostatistica in ambiente R

Ogni modulo si svilupperà in 16 ore di attività didattiche diviso in frazioni di 4 ore ciascuno.
Pagina di riferimento.
Scheda corsi.

GRASS GIS Community Sprint coming soooon!

The next "GRASS GIS Community Sprint" is coming soon! It will take place from May 23 to May 28, 2012 in Prague, Czech Republic directly following the Geoinformatics FCE CTU 2012 conference.

Timing and Duration:
May 23, 2012 (day of arrival) - May 28, 2012 (day of departure)

Venue:
Department of Mapping and Cartography Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague

The Wiki page of the event is here.

GFOSS.it, OSGeo.org and FOSSGIS.de will offer financial support to the event.

If you like to be a sponsor of the event, and help covering costs such as meals or to help reducing travelling and accommodation expenses for GRASS developers with far arrival, please read about sponsoring the GRASS project and, if needed, contact Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org>.

Sicurezza informatica e strumenti GIS Free e Open Source per l'Ingegneria - Comunicato stampa

Venerdì 4 Maggio 2012, si è tenuto il workshop informativo come dal titolo
“Sicurezza informatica e strumenti GIS Free e Open Source per l'Ingegneria”
presso l'Ordine degli Ingegneri della Provincia di Matera. La notevole affluenza di pubblico è stato sintomo oggettivo per il crescente interesse in ambito professionale verso la continua formazione e gli strumenti di elevata qualita` offerti dalla comunita` del software libero. Gli ingegneri e gli altri professionisti intervenuti hanno ascoltato per oltre tre ore le esposizioni degli Ingegneri Margherita Di Leo, Angelo Giordano e Gabriele Nolè che hanno portato alla loro attenzione dei temi di sicuro interesse professionale. Non possiamo riassumere in poche parole le oltre tre ore di interventi e discussioni, tuttavia ecco qui di seguito i link al materiale (presentazioni e riprese video) messi a disposizione del pubblico secondo lettera e spirito della filosofia Open Source:

Video:
Giordano
Nole`
Di Leo

Slides:
Giordano
Nole`
Di Leo

Le tematiche affrontate hanno spaziato dalla Sicurezza Informatica agli applicativi per sistemi operativi Linux dedicati all’Ingengeria per concludersi con un’approfondita disamina dei Sistemi Informativi Geografici (GIS) Open Source e delle relative applicazioni. Dato l’interesse riscontrato è facile prevedere che le soluzioni proposte, capaci di coniugare una migliore efficienza nei processi ingegneristici con un drastico abbattimento dei costi, troveranno terreno fertile e speriamo di poterle vedere concretizzate anche per contribuire a dare ossigeno all'economia cianotica della Basilicata.

Gli organizzatori rivolgono un caldo ringraziamento a tutti gli intervenuti, alla cortesia del Segretario dell'Ordine degli Ingegneri della Provincia di Matera e all'Ing. Pierfrancesco Pellecchia che si è speso per consentire l’agevole svolgimento dell’iniziativa.