Telecommunications

Hi all, as promised I am posting the first of the MapInfo Pro Advanced Exercises today.  We will start with something very basic, opening a raster file in MapInfo Pro Advanced.  This exercise contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2016.  OS OpenData is free to use under the Open Government Licence (OGL).  OS Terrain 50 user guide and technical specifications can be found here.  The data itself can be downloaded as an attachment below.

Open Raster and use basic functionality

 

Objective: Open a large MRR grid file to see the speed of grid rendering and basic MapInfo Pro Advanced analysis functionality.

• Home > Open Table and select GB OST50 UK.tab from Exercise1 download folder. 
  1. This is a 200Mb file and is actually very small in regard to what Advanced is capable of rendering. However 200Mb grids and images were very slow to open before the MRR format was supported.  
  2. Pan and zoom around in the map to see the speed of navigation and rendering of the DEM.
• Home > Open ACME Telco.tab and Navigate to the Raster Tab. Toggle through Raster Info, Statistics and Cell Value. 
  1. Raster Info shows the grid metadata.
  2. Statistics, this is especially interesting if you select the ACME Telco.tab file as the Input file as the user can then see what percentage of the grid has Good Signal and what percentage doesn't. You can do this by selecting the Graph icon in the Statistics window. Note the results can be quickly saved as a csv or tab file.
  3. Select Cell Value and click on the map to see a few examples. On very large files this simple action would have taken a very longtime or possibly not responded on large files in the past.
• In the Raster tab, select the Colour option and hover the mouse over the different colour scales, watch them change in realtime.
  1. Go the Colour Stretch option and move the cursor over the different colour stretches. This will modify the histogram curve to highlight or lowlight certain ranges of the data values.  It can be used to quickly identify hotspots such as high or low lying areas in a terrain model or high areas of high population in a population density map.
  2. The Advanced Colour option can be used to input specific colours based on RGB values along with value ranges being defined to show specific results.
  3. Click on the Hill Shade button and move the mouse over the varying sun highlight directions. They will update as the cursor moves over them.  Sun Shadow and Highlight can be switched on an off with the check boxes.
• Finally, click on the Favorite Templates. This is used to give the user quick access to defined colour settings of their choice.  Click Manage Templates.  The user can Add template, this button won't become selectable until Category and Template Name have been filled in (Description is optional).

I hope you enjoyed this first exercise.  Please leave any comments and suggestions below.

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Chris Jenkins
Pitney Bowes Software Ltd
Henley-on-Thames
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