Mapinfo Professional 7.8 - Product Update

On August 30th, MapInfo announced an upgrade to its flagship desktop GIS product, MapInfo Professional. According to Moshe Binyamin, product manager for MapInfo, “This release provides assurances that our customer's investment in MapInfo will be maintained through a strong commitment to backwards compatibility.”

The v7.8 release of MapInfo Pro includes many enhancements of which existing users will want to take note. The product has received Microsoft Windows XP certification and it was re-certified on Oracle 10g primarily to ensure functionality and maintain database security. It continues to provide compatibility with Oracle 9i, Oracle Locator and Oracle 8.17 as well as Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and IBM Informix 9.4.

Raster handlers for MrSID and AirPhoto USA have been built into the product and there is now an export to comma-delimited format for tables.

This version also has additional functionality to support the Open Geospatial Consortium's (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) and the Web Feature Service (WFS). It will support all versions of the WMS Client (1.0.0, 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.3) and the GetInfoFeature that allows the user to identify information from active layers that can be queried, and those that serve as a backdrop. The WFS Client 1.0 is also supported in this release for accessing geographic features and attribution; since the WFS protocol does not support style information, the dialog offers the option to specify desired styles. For WMS and WFS servers, there is connectivity with MapXtreme 2004; WMS Server connectivity is also supported for MapXtreme Java 4.7. Also new in v7.8 is the support of saving of Workspaces in MapInfo's new XML format that MapXtreme 2004 uses.

In order that massive amounts of data are not imported into a MapInfo workspace through a connection to a WFS server, MapInfo Professional 7.8 provides a “Column” filter so that the user can pre-select certain attribution to be displayed (See Figure 1). Consequently, the user can also filter by querying the “Row” filter function (See Figure 2). Figure 3 shows a comparison between the MapInfo Professional 7.5 (Figure 3a) and 7.8 (Figure 3b) “Open WFS” dialog box.

Figure 1 (Click for larger view)

Figure 2 (Click for larger view)

Figure 3a (Click for larger view)

Figure 3b (Click for larger view)

Figure 3

Another feature of the WMS Map Properties dialog box is the ability to see some of the metadata associated with a particular layer. Figure 4 shows the the "Boston Landmarks" layer highlighted and the metadata shown in the "Layer Abstract" box at the bottom of the form.

Figure 4 (Click for larger view)

Other features contained in this version include’

• Distance calculator
• Spider graph
• Synchronize Map Windows
• Search and replace a partial value in multiple columns
• An option to enable “continue line following” for streamlined digitizing
• Customize a map with new high resolution symbology
• Enhanced Text Objects supporting 2048 characters (from 256)
• Support of Cartographic Scale (1:50 as well as 1" = 4 miles)
• Support or query tables in 3D Prism Maps
• Enhanced rendering of 3D Prism Maps
• Enhanced GPS utility support of USB and COM ports
• Included line style editor
• Updated ProViewer (free download)

To highlight just two of these new features, see Figures 5 & 6. In Figure 5a, this version supports a DISTANCE ANALYSIS function to determine the spatial relationship between the origin and destination table. For example: the dialog takes a list of prospects as origin locations and will automatically find the nearest service center from the available service center table. For the Spider Graph feature seen in Figure 5b, if a health maintenance organization wanted to see how patients are distributed among certain doctors within their care region, the spider graph dialog would be used to establish the spatial criteria. Figure 5b shows the resulting Spider graph of this relationship.

Figure 5a (Click for larger view)

Figure 5b (Click for larger view)

Figure 5

Figure 6 illustrates the Synchronized Map Window view that allows the user to continue to view the same area with multiple map windows open. As such, while the user zooms or pans within a single map view, all other windows can be synchronized to zoom/pan simultaneously. In this way, map views with differing layer priorities (e.g. raster image in one view; thematic map in another, vector line styles in a third, etc.) can continue to be focused on the same spatial extents as the user works in one of the map views.

Figure 6 (Click for larger view)

In addition, MapBasic 7.8 contains new statements and functions including:

• MGRStoPoint() and PointToMGRS$() - converts X,Y to military grid reference system (MGRS) and vice versa
• Programmatic ability to split and continue line at a point
• Register Table statement now supports type WFS
• Programmatically refresh a WFS table
• Export statement to support CSV format
• Shade statement supports dot density of square/circle with any point size
• Create Cartographic Legend statement to create small or large swatch sizes
• Set Cartographic Legend statement supports legend size
• LegendInfo( ) function now returns legend size (Small and Large)
• New sample applications added

The future however still looks to be a release of MapInfo Professionals on a .NET platform. Binyamin said, "We see .NET playing a part in our long-term strategy, in addition to helping our customers through increased efficiencies that are built into the current product platform."