software.html

<h2>Software</h2>

<h3 id="developing">Software we are developing</h3>
  These are highlights of software we developed or are currently developing.
  For a complete list, browse through source code repositories linked in the next section.
  <ul class="image-list">
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/grass_logo.png" alt="GRASS GIS logo">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/">GRASS GIS</a></h4>
      <p>GRASS GIS is a multipurpose GIS used in wide range of applications.
      We contribute to the GRASS GIS project by developing new features,
      fixing issues and maintaining source code.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rfutures.png" alt="patches grown by r.futures">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.futures.html">r.futures</a></h4>
      <p>r.futures is a group of modules in a GRASS GIS Addons repository which implements
      the FUTURES model developed by Meentemeyer et al. for modeling urban growth.</p>
    </li><li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/barton2015medland.png" alt="">
      <h4><a href="https://www.openabm.org/model/4609/version/1">MedLanD Modeling Laboratory v.1</a></h4>
      <p>Barton, C Michael, Ullah, Isaac, Mayer, Gary, Bergin, Sean, Sarjoughian, Hessam, Mitasova, Helena (2015, May 4). "MedLanD Modeling Laboratory v.1" (Version 1). CoMSES Computational Model Library.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/r3flow.png" alt="r3.flow output">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/r3.flow.html">r3.flow</a></h4>
      <p>r3.flow is a GRASS GIS module computes 3D flow lines and 3D flow accumulation.
      The module will be included in GRASS GIS 7.1 and now it is available
      in the development version of GRASS GIS (trunk).</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/r3inlidar.png" alt="slices of r3.in.lidar output">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/r3.in.lidar.html">r3.in.lidar</a></h4>
      <p>r3.in.lidar is a GRASS GIS module which performs 3D binning
      of a lidar point cloud to determine, e.g. vegetation structure.
      The module will be included in GRASS GIS 7.2.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rlocalrelief.png" alt="r.local.relief output shade">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.local.relief.html">r.local.relief</a></h4>
      <p>r.local.relief is a GRASS GIS addon for creating a local relief model from elevation map.
      Usages include archeology and various terrain analysis tasks in general.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rshadedrelief.png" alt="r.shaded.relief colorful output">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.shaded.pca.html">r.shaded.pca</a></h4>
      <p>r.shaded.pca is a GRASS GIS addon which creates relief shades from
      various directions and combines them into RGB composition.
      The combined shades highlight terrain features
      which wouldn't be visible using standard shading technique.
      This tool can be used in archeology as well as general terrain analysis.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rskyview.jpg" alt="r.skyview output shade">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.skyview.html">r.skyview</a></h4>
      <p>r.skyview is a GRASS GIS addon which uses sky-view factor visualization technique
      to create beautiful relief shade which can be used in many analytical applications.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rsamplecategory.png" alt="points on category raster">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.sample.category.html">r.sample.category</a></h4>
      <p>r.sample.category is a GRASS GIS addon for creating sampling points
      from each category (class) in a raster map. This is a handy tool
      for stratified sampling.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rsundaily.png" alt="r.sun.daily output in 3D">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.sun.daily.html">r.sun.daily</a></h4>
      <p>r.sun.daily is a GRASS GIS addon for computing solar radiation
      for a sequence of days during a year.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./software_pictures/rsunhourly.png" alt="r.sun.hourly output in 3D">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/addons/r.sun.hourly.html">r.sun.hourly</a></h4>
      <p>r.sun.hourly is a GRASS GIS addon for computing solar radiation during a day.</p>
    </li>
  </ul>

<h3 id="using">Software we are using</h3>
  We would like to acknowledge
  the developers and communities behind the software we use for our research.
  <ul class="image-list">
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/grass_logo.png" alt="GRASS GIS logo">
      <h4><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/">GRASS GIS</a></h4>
      <p><a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/">GRASS GIS</a>
         is a free and open source Geographic Information System (GIS)
         used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing,
         spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS GIS is all purpose GIS
         although many of its users are focused mainly
         on scientific GIS applications or backend processing involving big data.
         GRASS GIS is the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
         (<a href="http://osgeo.org">OSGeo</a>) project.</p>
      <p>We contribute to the GRASS GIS project by developing new features
         and as a part of GRASS GIS community we support faculty and students using GRASS GIS.
         The NCSU GeoForAll Lab leader, Dr. Helena Mitasova, is the co-author of the book
         <a href="http://www.grassbook.org/">Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach</a>.</p>
      <p>Feel free to <a href="about.html#contact">contact us</a>
         in case you have questions or you are interested in collaboration.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/QGIS_logo.png" alt="QGIS logo">
      <h4><a href="http://qgis.org/">QGIS</a></h4>
      <p><a href="http://qgis.org/">QGIS</a> is a free and open source GIS
         which is easy to use and enables sophisticated cartographic outputs.
         QGIS is fully-fledged alternative to proprietary
         tools in terms of functionality, user interface and commercial support.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/blender.png" alt="Blender logo">
      <h4><a href="https://www.blender.org/">Blender</a></h4>
      <p><a href="https://www.blender.org/">Blender</a>
         is an open source 3D creation suite.
         It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline.
         Besides the interactive environment itself, we use
         also the Python API for the software.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/leaflet_logo.png" alt="Leaflet logo">
      <h4><a href="http://leafletjs.com/">Leaflet</a></h4>
      <p><a href="http://leafletjs.com/">Leaflet</a> is an open source JavaScript library for interactive online maps.
         It is easy to use, fast and extensible by plugins. </p>
    </li>
  </ul>

<h3 id="repositories">Source code repositories</h3>
    The article
    <a href="http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v4/n3/full/nmeth0307-189.html">Social software</a>
    in Nature Methods (2007) says <em>"Software [...] is important for the method's implementation [...] Such software [...] must be made available to readers upon publication."&nbsp;</em>
    Furthermore, the article
    <a href="http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v11/n3/full/nmeth.2880.html">Software with impact</a>
    in Nature Methods (2014) concludes with
    <em>"An open implementation that supports reproducible research not only provides confidence [...]
    but increases the likelihood that other researchers can use and build upon it."&nbsp;</em>
    Thus, when we create software or even simple scripts during our research,
    we share the software including its source code.
  <ul class="image-list">
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/octocat-original.png" alt="GitHub octocat">
      <h4><a href="https://github.com/ncsu-geoforall-lab/">NCSU GeoForAll Lab organization at GitHub</a></h4>
      <p>GitHub is a repository hosting service which works with Git repositories.
      We manage there our projects' source codes. Specifically, we use GitHub for
      projects which are not part of any other free and open source project
      but we want to share them with community.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/octocat-original.png" alt="GitHub octocat">
      <h4><a href="https://github.com/ncsu-landscape-dynamics">NCSU Landscape Dynamics organization at GitHub</a></h4>
      <p>We use this organization to share our work on landscape forecasting, including FUTURES urban growth model
         and Pest or Pathogen Spread (PoPS) framework.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/grass_logo.png" alt="GRASS GIS logo">
      <h4><a href="https://github.com/OSGeo/grass">GRASS GIS repository</a></h4>
      <p>A lot of our code goes directly to GRASS GIS, specifically to its GitHub repository.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <img src="./logos/grass_logo.png" alt="GRASS GIS logo">
      <h4><a href="https://github.com/OSGeo/grass-addons">GRASS GIS Addons repository</a></h4>
      <p>We try to create most of our tools as GRASS modules which we publish in GRASS Addons repository.</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <!--
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        convert original.png -fuzz 70% -fill red -opaque black red.png
      Usage and modification should be OK according to
        http://octodex.github.com/faq.html
      if it is a link to GitHub.
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      <img src="./logos/octocat-red.png" alt="GitHub octocat in red">
      <h4><a href="https://github.ncsu.edu/osgeorel">NCSU GeoForAll Lab organization at NCSU GitHub Enterprise</a></h4>
      <p>NCSU provides us with access to GitHub Enterprise which is not publicly accessible.
      We manage there only internal one-purpose projects which are not suitable for publishing.
      If you are part of NCSU, you can still access some of them but anyway majority of our projects
      is available in other repositories.</p>
    </li>
  </ul>