MapInfo Pro

Hello,

I am looking for automating below mentioned map file processing steps:
1. download multiple shape files from a website like tomtom

2. combine multiple shape files into one by editing table data and appending them into one

3. save final file into .shp format

Other tasks that I have to include
- convert .gdl file to .mif 
- custom map request where in I have to import an table with brickids or similar id onto an existing map and update the map, columns using that table and file the holes and save it as shape file.

Since the idea is to automate most of the above steps. Can somone please suggest if below approach will work ?

• Create an application using mapbasic with few buttons that will pick the input files, process them as explained above and output the file in specific place.
• If there are some components which require external processing (not included in mapbasic) then use python to do that using external library using "run as a program" function.

Does this look like a correct approach ?

Any suggestions would be welcome and highly appreciated.

thank you again.

Best Regards...

Hi Deepak

Most of what you describe can be done using MapBasic and/or Python in MapInfo Pro.

A few follow-up questions:

1. When you say shapefile, do you mean an ESRI shapefile or is that a general reference to a file holding spatial objects (shapes)?
2. How are these files stored on the server? This is important when understanding how you can access the files programmatically.
3. I haven't encountered the GDL format before. It could be this format, but I'm unsure: "The GDL file is an ArchiCAD Geometric Description Language File. ArchiCAD is an architectural CAD software developed by the Hungarian company Graphisoft." I am also not sure how you can convert this format.

A couple of suggestions to get you started:

If you are looking to open ESRI shapefiles in MapInfo Pro, you can use the Register Table command to create a TAB file referencing the ESRI shapefile and then use Open Table to open the ESRI shapefile in MapInfo Pro. Finally, you can save a copy of the shapefile into a native TAB file for read/write access using the Commit Table statement.

'**Creating a few variables for the script

Dim arrShapeFiles(0), sShapeTabFile, sNativeTabFile As String

Dim sShapeTab, sNativeTab As String

Dim nFile As Integer

'**Defining the list of Shape Files to open using a String array

Dim nFile As Integer

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile1.shp"

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile2.shp"

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile3.shp"

'**Opening an ESRI Shapefile and saving it into a Native Tab File

sNativeTabFile = "C.\Data\SomeNativeTabFile.tab"

Register Table arrShapeFiles(1) Type SHAPEFILE Charset "WindowLatin1" CoordSys Auto PersistentCache ON Type NATIVEX Into sShapeTabFile

Open Table sShapeTabFile

sShapeTab = PathToTableName$(sShapeTabFile)

Commit Table sShapeTab As sNativeTabFile

Close Table sShapeTab

Open Table sNativeTabFile

sNativeTab = PathToTableName$(sNativeTabFile)

If you want to add more tables into the same file, you can use the Insert statement to merge two tables. In the example below, I use the For loop to loop over the shapefiles in the array arrShapeFiles.

'**Looping over the files 2 to number of files, opening each and inserting the rows into the native table

For nFile = 2 To Ubound(arrShapeFiles

   Register Table arrShapeFiles(nFile) Type SHAPEFILE Charset "WindowLatin1" CoordSys Auto PersistentCache ON Type NATIVEX Into sShapeTabFile

   Open Table sShapeTabFile

   sShapeTab = PathToTableName$(sShapeTabFile)

   Insert Into sNativeTab

       Select * From sShapeTab

   Commit Table sNativeTab

Next

Hopefully, this can get you started. Feel free to come back with follow-up questions.

Hello,

I am looking for automating below mentioned map file processing steps:
1. download multiple shape files from a website like tomtom

2. combine multiple shape files into one by editing table data and appending them into one

3. save final file into .shp format

Other tasks that I have to include
- convert .gdl file to .mif 
- custom map request where in I have to import an table with brickids or similar id onto an existing map and update the map, columns using that table and file the holes and save it as shape file.

Since the idea is to automate most of the above steps. Can somone please suggest if below approach will work ?

• Create an application using mapbasic with few buttons that will pick the input files, process them as explained above and output the file in specific place.
• If there are some components which require external processing (not included in mapbasic) then use python to do that using external library using "run as a program" function.

Does this look like a correct approach ?

Any suggestions would be welcome and highly appreciated.

thank you again.

Best Regards...

Thanks a lot Peter for your quick and detailed reply. This will help me a lot. I'll answer some of your queries here.

1. We are downloading maps from TomTom but there are other vendors too. They have API based map download access using python.
2. These shape files usually have 4 files for each country with .shp, .shx, .dbf and .prj extension. We usually import .shp files into Mapinfo.
3. I am trying to get details for .gdl file format and will share in this thread later.

Some followup questions:

• For custom map requests, usually our steps are as follows:
  • 
    

    copy the postcodes from vendor (tomtom) files and requested files into one excel file

    change the column to text type

    use lookup to copy brick id from client data to vendor data and paste them as values

    fill the missing brickid with the brickid of the nearest postcode

    save it as csv format

    in mapinfo, open the tab file of the region received from vendor and then the above csv file using "open table"

    go to backend data and add brickid column and update the column with the data from csv file

    combine this and create a new tab file

    aggregate the data using brickid column

    if the brickids are not visible on map then edit the table structure of final file and remove postcode column

    Update the columns with the given values (CentroidX, Y and area). Save the file

    aggregate the data using brickid column

  • If we have a map where there is a hole (with no brick id) then we insert a shape in the map and combine it in the map. Can this be done using mapbasic ?

if you could please review above steps and just tell me if all of it can be done using mapbasic then we can figure out the functions and use them.

Thank you again.

Best Regards

Hi Deepak

Most of what you describe can be done using MapBasic and/or Python in MapInfo Pro.

A few follow-up questions:

1. When you say shapefile, do you mean an ESRI shapefile or is that a general reference to a file holding spatial objects (shapes)?
2. How are these files stored on the server? This is important when understanding how you can access the files programmatically.
3. I haven't encountered the GDL format before. It could be this format, but I'm unsure: "The GDL file is an ArchiCAD Geometric Description Language File. ArchiCAD is an architectural CAD software developed by the Hungarian company Graphisoft." I am also not sure how you can convert this format.

A couple of suggestions to get you started:

If you are looking to open ESRI shapefiles in MapInfo Pro, you can use the Register Table command to create a TAB file referencing the ESRI shapefile and then use Open Table to open the ESRI shapefile in MapInfo Pro. Finally, you can save a copy of the shapefile into a native TAB file for read/write access using the Commit Table statement.

'**Creating a few variables for the script

Dim arrShapeFiles(0), sShapeTabFile, sNativeTabFile As String

Dim sShapeTab, sNativeTab As String

Dim nFile As Integer

'**Defining the list of Shape Files to open using a String array

Dim nFile As Integer

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile1.shp"

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile2.shp"

nFile = nFile + 1

ReDim arrShapeFiles(nFile)

arrsShapeFiles(nFile) = "C.\Data\SomeShapeFile3.shp"

'**Opening an ESRI Shapefile and saving it into a Native Tab File

sNativeTabFile = "C.\Data\SomeNativeTabFile.tab"

Register Table arrShapeFiles(1) Type SHAPEFILE Charset "WindowLatin1" CoordSys Auto PersistentCache ON Type NATIVEX Into sShapeTabFile

Open Table sShapeTabFile

sShapeTab = PathToTableName$(sShapeTabFile)

Commit Table sShapeTab As sNativeTabFile

Close Table sShapeTab

Open Table sNativeTabFile

sNativeTab = PathToTableName$(sNativeTabFile)

If you want to add more tables into the same file, you can use the Insert statement to merge two tables. In the example below, I use the For loop to loop over the shapefiles in the array arrShapeFiles.

'**Looping over the files 2 to number of files, opening each and inserting the rows into the native table

For nFile = 2 To Ubound(arrShapeFiles

   Register Table arrShapeFiles(nFile) Type SHAPEFILE Charset "WindowLatin1" CoordSys Auto PersistentCache ON Type NATIVEX Into sShapeTabFile

   Open Table sShapeTabFile

   sShapeTab = PathToTableName$(sShapeTabFile)

   Insert Into sNativeTab

       Select * From sShapeTab

   Commit Table sNativeTab

Next

Hopefully, this can get you started. Feel free to come back with follow-up questions.

Hello,

I am looking for automating below mentioned map file processing steps:
1. download multiple shape files from a website like tomtom

2. combine multiple shape files into one by editing table data and appending them into one

3. save final file into .shp format

Other tasks that I have to include
- convert .gdl file to .mif 
- custom map request where in I have to import an table with brickids or similar id onto an existing map and update the map, columns using that table and file the holes and save it as shape file.

Since the idea is to automate most of the above steps. Can somone please suggest if below approach will work ?

• Create an application using mapbasic with few buttons that will pick the input files, process them as explained above and output the file in specific place.
• If there are some components which require external processing (not included in mapbasic) then use python to do that using external library using "run as a program" function.

Does this look like a correct approach ?

Any suggestions would be welcome and highly appreciated.

thank you again.

Best Regards...