:Author: Hamish Bowman
:Reviewer: Cameron Shorter, LISAsoft
:Version: osgeo-live5.5
:License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported  (CC BY 3.0)

.. image:: ../../images/project_logos/logo-GRASS.png
  :scale: 100 %
  :alt: project logo
  :align: right
  :target: http://grass.osgeo.org

.. image:: ../../images/logos/OSGeo_project.png
  :scale: 100 %
  :alt: OSGeo Project
  :align: right
  :target: http://www.osgeo.org


GRASS GIS
================================================================================

Fully featured GIS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as
GRASS, is a Geographic Information System (GIS) providing powerful raster,
vector, and geospatial processing engines in a single integrated software
suite. GRASS 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 has
now been translated into twenty languages and supports a huge array of data
formats.

.. image:: ../../images/screenshots/1024x768/grass-vectattrib.png
   :scale: 50 %
   :alt: screenshot
   :align: right

GRASS is used around the world in academic and commercial settings
as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting
companies. It runs on a variety of popular hardware platforms and is Free
open-source software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

The GRASS software includes more than 400 built-in analysis modules.
Additionally, over 100 community supplied modules and toolboxes are
available for free from the community wiki site. After nearly 30 years of
continuous development GRASS is both the oldest and largest Open Source GIS
available. It is easily scriptable and versatile enough to be used both for
batch data processing on massively-parallel supercomputers as well as a handy
desktop GIS for handheld PDAs or netbooks.


.. _GRASS: http://grass.osgeo.org

Core Features
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* You name it, there's a tool for it.
* Explore the `screenshot collection <http://grass.osgeo.org/screenshots/>`_.

Details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Website:** http://grass.osgeo.org

**Licence:** GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2

**Software Version:** 6.4.2

**Supported Platforms:** GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, MS Windows

**API Interfaces:** C, Python, Bourne Shell

**Support:** http://grass.osgeo.org/community/support.php


Quickstart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* :doc:`Quickstart documentation <../quickstart/grass_quickstart>`