Interfaces overview

GRASS provides a number of interfaces for interacting with the software. The most common interfaces are command line, Python, Jupyter Notebooks, and graphical user interface.

Command line

The command line, also know as terminal or shell, interface allows you to start a GRASS session to run GRASS commands, execute scripts, or open the graphical user interface.

Here we create a new project for the NAD83(HARN)/North Carolina coordinate reference system (EPSG:3358) and start a GRASS session as a new shell in your terminal:

grass -c EPSG:3358 {project directory} --text

The shell can now execute GRASS commands.

g.region raster=elevation
r.slope.aspect elevation=elevation slope=slope aspect=aspect

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Python

GRASS Python interface provides libraries to create GRASS scripts and access the internal data structures of GRASS. The Python interface consists of two main libraries: grass.script provides a Python interface to GRASS tools and grass.pygrass enables access to the internal data structures of GRASS.

To get started with scripting, create a new project with gs.create_project and start a GRASS session with the gs.setup.init function to initialize the GRASS environment.

import sys
import subprocess

# Append GRASS to the python system path
sys.path.append(
    subprocess.check_output(["grass", "--config", "python_path"], text=True).strip()
)

import grass.script as gs

# Create a new project
gs.create_project(path="path/to/my_project", epsg="3358")

# Initialize the GRASS session
with gs.setup.init("path/to/my_project") as session:

    # Run GRASS tools
    gs.run_command("r.import", input="/path/to/elevation.tif", output="elevation")
    gs.run_command("g.region", raster="elevation")
    gs.run_command("r.slope.aspect", elevation="elevation", slope="slope")

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Jupyter notebooks

Jupyter notebooks provide an interactive environment for writing and running code, combining text, code, and visualizations in a single document. They are widely used for data analysis, workflow prototyping, and scientific computing, making them a powerful tool for working with GRASS.

The grass.jupyter Python package provides a Jupyter notebook interface to GRASS. It includes modules for creating map figures, interactive web maps, visualizing data series and time series, and generating 3D visualizations.

To get started with grass.jupyter, import the package, and start a GRASS session with the gj.init function:

import grass.jupyter as gj

session = gj.init("path/to/my_project")

All classes and functions for interaction in notebooks are now available under gj, for example we can display a map with a selected raster and vector:

# Create a new map
m = gj.Map()

# Add a raster map to the map object
m.d_rast(map="elevation")

# Add a vector map to the map object
m.d_vect(map="streets", color="black")

# Display the map
m.show()

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Desktop graphical user interface

The GRASS Desktop GUI is a graphical user interface for GRASS. Designed for efficiency and ease of use, it provides an intuitive way to interact with spatial data and the powerful tools available in GRASS. The GUI supports the visualisation of spatial data, the execution of geoprocessing tasks and the management of complex workflows.

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SOURCE CODE

Available at: interfaces_overview source code (history)
Latest change: Sunday Apr 13 22:26:08 2025 in commit dae7d03