:Author: Hamish Bowman
:Reviewer: Cameron Shorter, LISAsoft
:Reviewer: Markus Neteler
:Version: osgeo-live8.5
:License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
:Copyright: 2011-2015 by The OSGeo Foundation

.. image:: ../../images/project_logos/logo-GRASS.png
  :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 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 comes with a temporal framework
for advanced time series processing and a Python API for rapid geospatial
programming. GRASS GIS has been optimized for performance
and large geospatial data analysis. It also can
produce sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has
been translated into many languages and supports a huge array of data
formats.

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

GRASS GIS 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 GIS software includes more than 400 built-in analysis modules.
Additionally, over 100 community supplied modules and toolboxes are
available for free from the Add-on repository. After more than 30 years of
continuous development GRASS GIS is both the longest maintained 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 GIS: http://grass.osgeo.org

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

* You name it, there's a `tool for it <http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/keywords.html>`_.
* 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:** 7.0.0RC1

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

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

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


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

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