uDig-JGrasstools Resources (in Italian)

Per usare uDig, la prima cosa è ovviamente installarlo seguendo le istruzioni. Fatto questo, il secondo passo è quello di istallare ed usare lo Spatial Toolbox.
Quindi non resta che usarlo!
Riepilogo qui alcune risorse alle quali gli utenti italiani di quel che fu JGrass possono fare ricorso

• Introduzione ai GIS (well, for a more structured introduction, a very good introduction is de Smith et al., Geospatial Analysis a comprehensive guide, 2013 - which is available on-line)
• Introduzione ad uDig con i JGrasstools (tutto il materiale è sperimentale se trovate omissioni, errori ed altro, per cortesia segnalatelo)


• Una presentazione di introduzione dei JGrasstools e uDig (slides di lezione)
• Walktrough 1 - Istallazione di uDig 1.3.1 (traduzione del documento ufficiale in Inglese)
• Walktrough 2 - Editing con uDig e WFS (traduzione del documento ufficiale in Inglese)
• Una presentazione di sintesi dei due primi Walktrough: come lavorare con le mappe
• Walktrough 4 - Installazione dello Spatial Toolbox (non è distribuito dagli sviluppatori di uDig)
• Walktrough 5 - Lavorare con i formati di GRASS (non è distribuito dagli sviluppatori di uDig)
• Usare il Map Calculator e Jiffle (messo "su carta" quello che già c'e', in inglese sul web)

• Il materiale sulla Horton Machine, ovvero per il trattamento dei dati digitali del terreno, è, ora, in un post separato
• Il materiale di supporto alla progettazione di acquedotti e fognature è invece qui.

In questo link potete trovare anche il manuale di JGrass 3.0 ... che è sorpassato: ma, ad esempio, come costruire le legende si trova solo qui.

Per quelli che sono interessati alla capacità di scripting di uDig, allora è il caso di dare una occhiata:

• al post di Andrea Antonello su JgrassTechTips (in Inglese)

Altre risorse sono certamente utili. Per esempio,  la serie di screen-cast che si puo' trovare su 

YouTube/udiggis

benche' siano in Inglese. Quanti volessero aiutare, li invito  a leggere il post di Andrea Antonello.

My Past Research on Hydroinformatics, GIS and Modelling by Components

Research in the aforementioned sectors was also carried out with the implementation of  open-source software, coded in C and Java and distributed with a GPL (v 3) license.  Involvement in this topic has been deemed necessary to easy cooperative research, and to improve reuse of codes among researchers and students,  and allow an incremental development of modelling solutions (avoiding to implement again and again the same algorithms at any new generation of students).
The software has been accurately documented [eb1 to eb13] so that it can be easily reused and modified for both research and didactic purposes.  The software originally included a series of C libraries for reading, writing and insertion of comments in the data files, dynamic allocation of memory, the statistical treatment of data aimed  especially at hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology, but not limited to these.  On the basis of these libraries, called "Fluid Turtles" and now obsolete, was implemented the initial version GEOtop model [j24, s3]  and an initial version of  the  Horton machine [e.g. eb-3, s3].

However, the traditional software architecture of the Fluid Turtles presented various limitations. Mainly: the lack of an interface for the processing of  input data and the treatment of output data and the difficulty of maintaining and testing the software and its parts each one independently from the others, with the growing number of processes being described [e.g. A44, A49]. In fact, with the increasing number of people working on the code, and with the success of the modelling ideas among users, it became necessary to be able to test and use groups of parts of the models separately (as in JGrass-NewAGE).  It was also envisioned necessary to predispose the models  to be linked (in the future) to external models, such as, for example, those simulating the evolution of the atmospheric boundary layer, or belonging to other domains than hydrology (for instance to build a Decision Support System).
These, and other reasons [J40], have brought through a decade of work, trials and errors, on the one hand, to the development of a new GIS,  JGrass, eventually embedded in uDig,  and, on the other, to the adoption of suitable informatics infrastructure in order to restructure the models in components according to the OMS standard.

In the latest version, JGrass has partially contributed to the uDig "core" [eb10, A49, J41], while the modeling part is migrating to the jgrasstools environment (based on OMS) called Spatial Toolbox.
The last version of the tools has been actually embedded in Hydrologis' S.T.A.G.E which is a stand-alone application connectable, in principle, to any Java GIS (thinking to future versions of uDig or GvSig). The tools for terrain analysis included in STAGE  (a.k.a "The Horton Machine") are well covered by [a57]

Along the years various prototypes where developed around the above infrastructures to connect models to SQL/Geographic databases (Postgresql/Postgis), to visualise results on the Nasa World Wind virtual globe, and to allows scripting to interact with models which were presented in various conferences, and on which we could discuss with those interested.

References

In English:

[ J24] - Rigon R., Bertoldi G e T. M. Over, GEOtop: A distributed hydrological model with coupled water and energy budgets, Vol. 7, No. 3, pages 371-388

[A49] Formetta G., Antonello A., Franceschi S., David O. and Rigon R., The informatics of the hydrological modelling system JGrass-NewAge, 2012 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software Managing Resources of a Limited Planet, Sixth Biennial Meeting, Leipzig, Germany R. Seppelt, A.A. Voinov, S. Lange, D. Bankamp (Eds.) http://www.iemss.org/society/index.php/iemss- 2012-proceedings, 2012

[J40] - Formetta G., Antonello A., Franceschi S., David O., and Rigon R., Hydrological modelling with components: A GIS-based open-source framework, Environmental Modelling & Software, 5 (2014), 190-200

[a57]- W. Abera, A. Antonello, S. Franceschi, G. Formetta, R Rigon , "The uDig Spatial Toolbox for hydro-geomorphic analysis" in Geomorphological Techniques, v. 4, n. 1 (2014), p. 1-19.

[eb2-b] Ghesla, E. and R. Rigon, A Tutorial for the Management of Digital Terrain Models, pg. 131, University of Trento, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, ISBN 10: 88-8443-155-7, 2006 (Now obsolete)

[eb3] - R.Rigon, E. Ghesla, C. Tiso and A. Cozzini, The Horton Machine, pg. viii, 136, ISBN 10:88-8443-147-6, University of Trento, 2006 (Now obsolete)

[eb4-a] Ghesla E and R. Rigon, A Tutorial for preparing GEOtop Input Files with JGrass, pg. vi, 62, ISBN 10:88-8443-153-0, University of Trento, 2006

* [eb05] Dall’Amico, A., Endrizzi, E., Gruber, S., Rigon R., The GEOtop Manual, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

In Italian:

[A44] Antonello A., Franceschi S., Formetta G., Rigon R., L’infrastruttura NewAGE per la previsione e la gestione dei bilanci idrici a scala di bacino: I - La struttura informatica in Atti XXXII Convegno di Idraulica e Costruzioni Idrauliche, Palermo, 14-17 Settembre 2010

[eb1-a] Antonello, A., S. Franceschi, A. Vitti e R. Rigon, Il Manuale JGRASS 2.0 (In Italiano), pg. 176, ISBN 10:88-8443-144-1, University of Trento, 2006 (Now obsolete)

[eb2-a] Ghesla, E. and R. Rigon, Un tutorial per il trattamento di modelli digitali del terreno con JGRASS - A Tutorial for the treatment of DEMs with JGRASS (in Italian), ISBN 10: 88-8443-146-8, 2006 (Now obsolete)

[eb4-b] Ghesla E and R. Rigon, Un tutorial per la generazione dei file di input per GEOtop utilizzando JGrass, pg. vi, 62, ISBN 10:88-8443-154-9, University of Trento, 2006 (Now obsolete)

* [eb6] Rigon R., Formetta G., Zini M., Franceschi S., Antonello A., La Horton Machine, Università di Trento, in press, 2013


* [eb7] Rigon R., Formetta G., Perathoner L., Iemma A., Franceschi S., Antonello A., Jiffle, una breve introduzione, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

* [eb8] Rigon R., Formetta G., Perathoner L., Franceschi S., Antonello A., Peakflow: teoria e pratica, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

* [eb9] Franceschi S., Rigon R., Formetta G., Perathoner L., Antonello A., Trentop, Manuale d’uso, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

* [eb10] - Antonello A., Franceschi S., Rigon R., Formetta G., Perathoner L., uDig: Installare lo Spatial Toolboox, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

[eb11] - Iemma, A., Antonello A., Franceschi S., Rigon R., Formetta G., Perathoner L., uDig walkthroughs, Lavorare con i formati di GRASS in uDig, Università di Trento, in press, 2013

udig got a spatial toolbox

I think to it as a milestone to which I contributed a little during the years, even if the full merit needs to be done to Andrea Antonello and Silvia Franceschi: "the Hydrologis".

The idea was to give a transparent (encapsulated) way to add spatial models to a GIS. As told in previous blogs, the way was found in following the OMS3 framework ideas, after having tried hard with OpenMI. Andrea did more by using OMS3 annotations to automatically create the input-output interface, and manual like help, to any OMS3 compliant module. Any information can be found at

udig spatial toolbox a.k.a. OMS3box. However, do not use the 0.7.1 code but use the more recent one that can be found at the jgrasstools download page.

I do not know if Andrea and Silvia fully realize the importance of what they created. It is a big jump to a new type of GIS where the usual paradigms for connecting models, data and visualization, are suddenly changed.

Researchers can now program their model following the OMS3 lines, and having them fully endowed with graphic I/O, help, without taking care of the details of making it.

Certainly programming a Jgrasstool is still a challenge for novices, and much work has to be done to smooth the learning curve of it. Especially writing manuals ;-)

Great work Andrea and Silvia: congratulations !

A second post on the JGrasstools in row

Please give a look to the announcement given by Andrea Antonello. There are at least two thing to notice: The Java wrapper to GRASS, and the presentation by Andrea which reveals the beauty of the concept of OMSBox. Please follow the link to read.

The first official release of the JGrasstools is out !

Searching for contributors, at the jgrasstools site thanks to the continuous and dedicated work of Andrea Antonello and Silvia Franceschi, the "Hydrologis".

Personally, I will confirm my commitment in increasing the science of their content, and to enlarge their scope. It's a major step forward the next JGrass, and to a new generation of GISs.

OpenFOAM ... new basic libraries for GEOtop ?

Matteo Dall'Amico, of Mountain-eering brought to my attention the OpenFoam community at:

http://www.openfoam.com/

OpenFoam is a set of models and libraries for simulations of fluid dynamics problems. From their own site:

"The OpenFOAM® (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox is a free, open source CFD software package produced by a commercial company, OpenCFD Ltd. It has a large user base across most areas of engineering and science, from both commercial and academic organisations. OpenFOAM has an extensive range of features to solve anything from complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics and electromagnetics.
The core technology of OpenFOAM is a flexible set of efficient C++ modules. These are used to build a wealth of: solvers, to simulate specific problems in engineering mechanics; utilities, to perform pre- and post-processing tasks ranging from simple data manipulations to visualisation and mesh processing; libraries, to create toolboxes that are accessible to the solvers/utilities, such as libraries of physical models.
OpenFOAM is supplied with numerous pre-configured solvers, utilities and libraries and so can be used like any typical simulation package. However, it is open, not only in terms of source code, but also in its structure and hierarchical design, so that its solvers, utilities and libraries are fully extensible.
OpenFOAM uses finite volume numerics to solve systems of partial differential equations ascribed on any 3D unstructured mesh of polyhedral cells. The fluid flow solvers are developed within a robust, implicit, pressure-velocity, iterative solution framework, although alternative techniques are applied to other continuum mechanics solvers. Domain decomposition parallelism is fundamental to the design of OpenFOAM and integrated at a low level so that solvers can generally be developed without the need for any ’parallel-specific’ coding.
This section of the website describes some of the features of OpenFoam. The information is a little out of date, but more information will be added during 2010 to catalogue the full list of features of OpenFOAM. "

What could be important for us could be, not just the solvers, since we do solvers, but the tools and the rules. Soon in fact we will be facing to move our GEOtop C-based code to some object oriented language (possibly in a mmix of Java and C++). Object oriented programming has a lot of advantages with respect to procedural programming with respect to many topics, which can help us to do better programming and work more easily in cooperation. Since a full-Java solution could not be as efficient as we desire, using C++ could be the choice.

The lesson we learned from the past work is that large modelling efforts without a community supporting the various needs, is an overwhelming task. JGrass experience viceversa, taught us that one can learn a lot from a community of developers, even if they have slightly different scopes from ours, and even their presence help us.

Thus, OpenFoam, having a community, and having solved many of the problems we have with our own code, is a good candidate for substituting the old beloved Fluidturtle Libraries that I coded fifteen years ago

The JGrass-NewAge system for forecasting and managing the hydrological budgets at the basin scale: the models of flow generation, propagation, and aggregation

A few year ago, I felt the necessity to built a less distributed model than GEOtop, but, at the same time, less lumped than my Peakflow model based in the GIUH theory. The model had to follow the new informatics envisioned in the GEOFRAME talk (see one of my first post for reference, and the post on adopting OMS3). The occasion was some financial support coming from the Adige river basin Authority. That, not only started the JGrass-NewAGE model, but also the migration of JGrass to the Eclipse Rich Client Platform, the implementation of a Postgres/Postgis database suited to contain a digital watershed model.

The first implementation of the model was based on the OpenMI, but as explained a couple of posts ago, we migrated to the OMS3 platform, and the second implementation of the model can be now found here.

The paper I am introducing, talk about the rainfallrunoff core of JGrass-NewAGE, and presents a discussion of its predictive capacity. The model focuses on the hydrological balance of medium scale to large scale basins, and considers statistics of the processes at the hillslope scale. The whole modeling system consists of six main parts: (i) estimation of energy balance; (ii) estimation of evapotranspiration; (iii) snow modelling; (iv) estimation of runoff production; (v) aggregation and propagation of flows in channel, and (vi) description of intakes, out-takes, and reservoirs. This paper details the processes, of runoff production, and aggregation/propagation of flows on a river network. The system is based on a hillslope-link geometrical partition of the landscape, so the basic unit, where the budget is evaluated, consists of hillslopes that drain into a single associated link rather than cells or pixels. To this conceptual partition corresponds an implementation of informatics that uses vectorial features for channels, and raster data for hillslopes. Runoff production at each channel link is estimated through a combination of the Duffy (1996) model and a GIUH model for estimating residence times in hillslope. Routing in channels uses equations integrated for any channels' link, and produces discharges at any link end, for any link in the river network. The model has been tested against measured discharges according to some indexes of goodness of fit such as RMSE and Nash Sutcliffe. The characteristic ability to reproduce discharge in any point of the river network is used to infer some statistics, and notably, the scaling properties of the modeled discharge.

The full paper is available at the GMMD site. Any comment from you is welcomed.

Using Geopaparazzi

GEOpaparazzi is a very nice tool for doing rapid topographic surveys, taking pictures that are geo-referenced, tracking your walk or excursion, and while walking and looking, taking notes.
This is well explained in the GEOpaparazzi web site.
Obviously it is easy to bring any of the things done into BeeGIS (its larger brother) and JGrass. Connection to Google is provided by exporting .klm files.

Now the wish list:

However, as happens for the good things, using it you would like to have something more. In fact, you can use it only when a GPS satellite is available, that is pretty reasonable thinking for what Geopaparazzi has been created, but the tool is so nice that you would like to use it also for other purposes. For instance, I have a simple app in my iphone where I "twitter-like" annotate what I am doing during the day: especially for helping my memory. A sort of simple diary. It would be great if I could use GEOpaparazzi for doing this. In addition to notes, I could also add picture, and besides, I will have also the location where I did it. This actually would implies that I should like to be able to take notes and picture, when no GPS is available, and let, for instance, the position be taken as soon as a GPS become available. In turn, obviously, this also would imply to have a "Diary viewer". This would make of GEOpaparazzi the insuperable Moleskine of the digital era.

Dreaming too much ?