mapinfomag_spring200..

Another new process added in v6.5
is Snap/Thin, the automatic removal
of nodes in polygons based on how
close they are together or how colinear
they are. This enables you to
simplify complex geographical data
so that MapInfo Professional can
manipulate it more quickly.
A disaggregate operation has also
been added to complement the existing
combine operation. Now complex
objects can be broken down into their
component objects.
Finally, some significant performance
improvements have been made by more
carefully optimizing which objects are
examined during an operation.
New Object Types
Two new object types—
multipoint and collection—
are supported.
MapInfo
Professional v6.5
supports two
new object types
in order to
provide more
support for
Oracle Spatial
object types
and compliance
with Open GIS
Consortium
(OGC) simple
object types.
These are multi-
point and collection. Now you can
create single objects that consist of
multiple points or even points, lines
and polygons. This is in addition to
the long-standing support for multipolylines
and regions (multipolygons).
These new object types are supported
by the combine, disaggregate, buffer
and convex hull operations.
Invert Selection
A feature widely requested by
MapInfo Professional users and
now incorporated in v6.5, the invert
selection tool allows you to simply
select all the objects in a table that
are not selected and simultaneously
unselects all the selected objects.
Instead of lassoing hundreds of
objects, just select the few you don’t
want and then invert the selection to
get all those you do. This operation
is available to you as both a button
on the main button pad and an
option in the query menu.
New TIN-based Interpolator
The new TIN-based interpolator is better suited
for terrain.
In addition to the existing Inverse-
Distance-Weighting (IDW) interpolator,
MapInfo Professional v6.5 also
includes a Triangulated-Irregular-
Network (TIN) based interpolator.
By performing less smoothing and
only considering adjacent values
when calculating the value of a
particular grid cell, the new TIN-based
interpolator is much better suited
for phenomena such as terrain.
With TIN-based interpolation,
your terrain has more definition
and more “depth” making your
maps more topologically accurate.
New Projections
To better support existing data that
you may want to use with MapInfo
Professional, v6.5 now supports two
new projections:
oblique aspects of Azimuthal Equal-
Area which is used by USGS, and
Cassini-Soldner, a popular projection
in Europe.
With v6.5, the cursor location can be
displayed in Military Grid Reference
System coordinates.
Usability Enhancements
Simple enhancements have been made
to MapInfo Professional to improve
usability. They include:
display style override for raster
images;
zoom layering preferences for raster
and grid images;
‘most-recently-used files’ list
expanded from 4 to 10; and,
‘view Entire Layer’ default changed
to ‘All Layers’.
Tool Enhancements
MapInfo Professional v6.5 includes
two new tools and significant
enhancements to others.
New Tools
Coordinate Extractor simplifies
the process of extracting coordinate
values from geographic objects
and inserting them into columns
in a table.
Grid Tools provide options to
convert grid files from any format
into the MapInfo native, binary
grid file format. This can greatly
improve performance. The tool also
creates new grid files from tables
of regularly spaced point objects,
and it provides an info tool with
display x, y and z values for the
cursor location.
Enhanced
HTML Image Map has been
enhanced in v6.5 to support point
and line objects, in addition to
polygons. It can also create image
maps from multiple layers of data,
create hyperlinks from data values,
and combine landing pages into a
single HTML document.
MapInfo Professional v6.5 now
allows you to place a scale bar in a
layout window and provides more
control over the appearance of the
scale bar.
MapBasic
As with all MapInfo Professional
upgrades, MapInfo ® MapBasic ®
has been updated to control these new
features. There are new statements
for the prism map and the new object
processing capabilities and updated
statements for raster image control.
MapInfo Professional v6.5 brings
you new capabilities to make your
maps look real and new tools and
enhancements to add convenience
to your tasks—including new ways
to add visual impact to your maps;
new ways of cleaning and modifying
your data; and improvements in
working with spatial objects.
Andrew Dressel is a MapInfo founder and
product manager for MapInfo Professional.
Microsoft, Windows and the Windows
Logo are registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States
and/or other countries.
SPRING 2001 MAPINFO MAGAZINE
www.mapinfo.com/magazine
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