Unit 08 - Modeler

Graphical Modeler allows creating, editing, and managing complex models in easy-to-use graphical user interface. Using Graphical Modeler a chain of processes (ie. GRASS modules) can be wrapped into one process (a model). A model can be executed repeatedly with slightly different inputs or parameters.

Our first model will be based on Unit 05 - Simple computation. Actually the model will perform two operations:

  1. set mask based on vector cloud mask file (r.mask) and
  2. compute NDVI (i.vi)

Graphical Modeler can be launched from menu File ‣ Graphical modeler or by grass-modeler-main Graphical Modeler from the main toolbar (or alternatively as g.gui.gmodeler module from console).

../_images/gmodeler.png

Fig. 57 Graphical Modeler.

GRASS modules can be added to the model from menu Model ‣ Add command or by grass-module-add Add command (GRASS module) to the model from the main toolbar.

../_images/add-module.png

Fig. 58 Add command (GRASS module) to the model, in this case r.mask.

After adding r.mask module to the model let’s open its properties dialog by double-click and enter vector map to be used as a mask. Don’t forget to enable inverse mask by -i flag.

../_images/module-props.png

Fig. 59 Define parameters for r.mask, a vector map used for creating a mask.

In similar way will be added to the model the second command i.vi (properties dialog for this command is open automatically because there are required options which must be set).

../_images/model-v1.png

Fig. 60 NDVI model version 1.

It’s a good idea to set metadata for the model and enable overwriting data produced by model (Model ‣ Model properties).

../_images/model-v1-props.svg

Fig. 61 Define model properties and enable overwriting data produced by model.

../_images/model-v1-req-display.png

Fig. 62 Set the output raster map to be automatically displayed in the map window.

Now let’s run our model by grass-execute Run model. Progress is printed into Command output.

../_images/model-v1-output.png

Fig. 63 Model computation progress.

../_images/model-v1-display.png

Fig. 64 New NDVI raster map computed by the modeler.

Run the model repeatedly on different computation regions.

Tip

Current computation region can be change easily by Set computation region extent interactively from grass-zoom-more Various zoom options in Map Display.

../_images/model-v1-region.png

Fig. 65 Change computation region before running the modeler.

Important

Before changing the region it’s a good idea to remove mask if exists.

r.mask -r

Sample model to download: ndvi-v1.gxm