On 09/29/2011 11:12 PM, Emile Peek wrote: > > I am a newbie and I am regularly making maps on Wikimedia Commons with > Inkscape. I am trying to make sense of Qgis and the many possibilities it > offers but to no avail. > > What is the Grass database? What can I retrieve from it? Maps, sure, but what > kind of maps? What is the scope of the GRASS database? > > What goes for GRass goes for other databases as well? What is on those > databases? Where can I find that kind of information? > > Answering my questions would mean much to me because right now I am > struggling. > > Emile. > >
GRASS is a geospatial analysis framework and toolset. The GRASS database is custom formats specifically geared toward such analysis tasks and is not suitable for anything else. QGIS is a visualization and analysis front end which can hook into many backends, GRASS, postgis, spatialite, multitude of python plugins, and soon SAGA and OTB toolboxes (I'm sure I missed some things). You can only retrieve data that is some reworking of what you put into it. Example, given an elevation dataset you can generate a hillshade to put behind other map layers. It does not come with data (other than a few samples) It might be most useful for you to look at the some slides and papers on QGIS & Inkscape for cartography. The most important difference here is that maps made with QGIS can contain real data that is referenced to a real place on earth in such a way that you can give that data to other people and it will show up in the same place on earth in their viewer - be it QGIS, ArcGIS, Openlayers or any other geospatial map viewing product. Enjoy, Alex _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
