CHANGES IN GRASS 6 compared to GRASS 5 * New Vector Engine (geometry): o Support for 2D/3D vectors (see screenshot) (CAD drawings, TINs), visualization supported in NVIZ o multiformat - also virtual map supported from external data sources (SHAPE-file, PostGIS) without the need of data conversion (through OGR library with 'v.external'); Export/Import to PostGIS; o spatial index build on the fly - 'v.build' (was: v.support) significantly accelerated; o category index to accelerate attribute queries; * Database Management Interface (attributes): o Attribute storage in DBMS for compatibility with industry standards (SQL based interface for PostgreSQL, mySQL, ODBC, dBase) o multiattribute - attributes saved in dBase files (default) or saved in external DBMS o multilayer - features in one vector may represent one or several layers and may be linked to one or many external tables o forms library implemented for user friendly query dialogs o Linear reference systems supported (LRS, yet to integrate) * Applications/Misc: o SQL queries/selects/extractions supported by vector modules o interactive attributes updating is supported through the forms library (d.what.vect lets you modify directly the attached attributes) o Vector network analysis: Shortest path, Traveling salesman (round trip), Allocation of sources (subnetworks), Minimum Steiner trees (starlike connections), and isodistances (from centers) (e.g. shortest path, see screenshot) - based on DGLIB (Directed Graph Library), costs may be assigned both to nodes and arcs (and also different in both directions of a vector line) o new v.digit with GUI (screenshot) o import and export of any OGR supported vector format (Shapefile, TIGER, MapInfo and GML2, PostGIS and DGN) o GUI generated on runtime and display manager (screenshots) o i18n: support for multiple languages (messages partially indicated and translated) o multiple GRASS sessions: a user can start more than one session at the time * Interoperability o Raster and vector data interoperability is granted through the GDAL/OGR libraries which implement interfaces to OGC standards and common GIS data formats * Volume visualization o NVIZ now supports volume (voxel) visualization o VTK export * Large File Support for raster maps (Experimental!) o GRASS 6.0 experimentally supports reading and writing large files (> 2GB, LFS support) * Programmer's manual integrated into source code (doxygen)