James Madison University
Integrated Science and Technology
Environment Sector
Author: Cate Wardell
Advisor: Dr. Steve Frysinger
Last updated: 26-Apr-2001

Welcome to "An Introduction to: Geographic Resources Analysis Support System Geographic Information System" (GRASS GIS). This web site provides a tutorial that will guide you through the basics of using GRASS on a Linux computer in the ISAT Environmental Systems Research Laboratory.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide a computer-based tool for mapping and analyzing geographical data. GIS technology integrates visualization, geographic analysis and database operations, making them unique compared to other computer-based information systems. Currently both public and private enterprises use GIS to explain, predict, and plan geographically related events.

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is an open source GIS with raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphics production functionality. GRASS operates on various platforms and is released under GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS provides flexibility in both modules and accepted data types, and a rather extensive amount of supportive documentation. In total, it is an ideal GIS to use in an academic setting.

This project aims to utilize GRASS to aid Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) students and faculty at James Madison University in visualizing and analyzing GIS data. In order to do this a database of GIS data for surrounding areas has been collected. This interactive web-based tutorial has been developed to use with the database. The tutorial can be followed online while running GRASS and is intended to teach users how to use the basic functions of GRASS, and introduce them to the compiled GIS database. This tutorial is not exhaustive. It is strongly recommended that the user view the manual pages for the different commands and explore other GRASS resources to expand upon the topics covered here.

The navigation buttons below are at the bottom of every page in this web page tutorial. The buttons navigate as follows:

• Start - Links to the first page in the tutorial
• Previous - Links to the previous page in the tutorial
• Next - Links to the next page in the tutorial
• End - Links to the last page in the tutorial
• Home - Links to the home page of the web site
• Help - Links to the help page of the web site
• Index - Links to the index of the web site
• Links - Links to a page that contains external links to other GRASS web sites

IMPORTANT: On the Help, Index, and Link pages, the previous and next buttons will take you back one page. Pages that do not have previous or next pages do not link to anything (for example, the end of the tutorial does not link to a Next page).

Click the Next button to continue to the start of the tutorial.