MapInfo Pro

Hi Everyone!

Many thanks to all who joined us for our recent MapInfo Pro APAC user support forum. Don't worry if you missed it - we have posted the recording and slide deck here for your review.

We had a bunch of great questions from users at the event. Questions and answers are summarized below:

1. Can I ask Mapinfo Developers to show us how to convert and export 'mrr files' into 'shape files'?

Shapefile is a vector format and MRR is a raster format. You can convert the MRR file to a raster file format that is compatible with ESRI software (there are several - see image below). Please let us know if you have further questions.


2. Can you please tell about geocoding function and facilities available in MapInfo?

Geocoding in MapInfo v17 - New geocoding tool and what's new in cloud services

3. Are there any initiatives regarding distributed /Web GIS?

Yes, we are working on multiple web projects... a web-based GIS (similar to Spectrum Spatial Analyst and MapInfo Pro), multiple APIs, and possibly SaaS apps for specific industry use cases.

4. When you have a points table that doesn't have a column in the attributes for the coordinates, but you want to show a table in the layout window that displays the coordinates (CentroidX(obj), CentroidY(obj)), instead of displaying in decimal degrees (or easting and northing) is there (or can there in the future) an option to display in dms (degree minutes, seconds)?

Good suggestion! Might be good to add it to the ideas portal and see if other users find it useful. It will help us to prioritize this suggestion.

5. In 'SQL Select' and/or 'Select by Location', it appears you can only select objects that; intersect, within, entirely within, within a distance. Is it possible to select object 'not within' and not by inverting the selection? If not, can this be added in a future release?

Good suggestion! Might be good to add it to the ideas portal and see if other users find it useful. It will help us to prioritize this suggestion.


And an article about finding objects that do not intersect: MapInfo Monday: Finding Records that don't Intersect 

6. When using 'Add to Map' – 'Gridlines' are you able to rotate the direction of the grid text on the vertical lines?

MapInfo Monday: Adding Gridlines to the Map - But I can see in a Request on Precisely Ideas that you want the label text direction to be upwards instead of downwards.

7. Would the ability to download data from ESRI REST API feature services ever be considered from MapInfo? Would save lots of custom scripting.

Have you tried accessing these services through GDAL now that MapInfo Pro supports this? I don't think this driver is one we have tested thoroughly, however. You can use GDAL from Python inside MapInfo Pro too.

8. In knowledge communities, is there a way to group or search with key words and search on version/release of mapinfo?

The posts on the community are currently not tagged using keywords and versions. The best suggestion is to use the search field in the top right side of the site. Are you looking for something specific - maybe we can help.

9. With the python module are you able to undertake a few Mapinfo steps and the process is put into python as a script which you can run.

Check out the Python resources below:

• Getting Started using Python in MapInfo Pro 
• MapInfo Monday: Creating Multiple Images using Python 
• MapInfo Monday: Creating a Dynamic GIFF using Python 
• Run MapInfo Raster Clip operation through Python 
• Sample code to run MapInfo raster Polygonise operation through Python 
• Read and access TAB file attributes data in Python 

Thanks again - please let us know if you have any other questions or suggestions for upcoming user events.

Jennifer

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Jennifer Kokkinos
Precisely Software Inc.
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