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MapInfo Monday: Bing Maps add-on for MapInfo Pro

  • 1.  MapInfo Monday: Bing Maps add-on for MapInfo Pro

    Employee
    Posted 06-24-2024 05:25
    Edited by Peter Møller 06-24-2024 08:45

    Base maps make it easy for you to orientate in your map.

    In MapInfo Pro, we give you a quick and easy way to access base maps for your map. From the Open dropdown, you can with a single click add a base map to your existing map or open a base map into a new map window if you don't have one open.

    With a standard maintained version of MapInfo Pro, you can choose from 5 base maps: Bing Aerial, Bing Hybrid, and one of the 3 Precisely Maps: Precisely Bronze, Precisely Steel, and Precisely Iron.
    All these base maps are global in coverage. They also all are Tile Server tables. This means they access a tile server online to retrieve individual images. Once downloaded these individual images are put together to form that combined image you see on your map. These images are typically cached which means you will see a very fast response time when zooming and panning your map.
    In this article, we will focus on the Bing Maps, and more specifically, we will talk about what you get the Bing Maps add-on which is an option you can purchase on top of your standard MapInfo Pro license. It comes at an additional cost, so let's investigate what is included in the Bing Maps add-on.
    Previously the Bing Maps add-on has also been known as Bing Premium.

    Base Maps

    As I mentioned above, out of the box in a maintained version of MapInfo Pro you have access to Bing Aerial and Bing Hybrid.
    Bing Aerial is a base map based on aerial imageries of the world. Bing Hybrid adds place and street names to the Bing Aerial base maps helping you find your way around the map.
    With the Bing Maps add-on, you also get access to Bing Roads. Where Bing Aerial and Bing Hybrid use aerial or satellite imagery often referred to as an orthophoto base map, Bing Road is a road or street base map, referred to as a topographic base map as you can see below. 
    Bing Roads adds details to the map as you zoom in and helps you navigate the surroundings. It also helps the viewers of your final map orientate themselves using street and place names.
    I find the use of street base maps compelling when adding additional business layers, which you often want to stand out as that is the important bit of your map.
    As we have discussed in an earlier #MapInfoMonday post, you can tone down any of these base maps to make your business data stand out even more against the base map. Here's the same map as above but in a grey-scale version.
    The Bing Roads base map is one of the features included in the Bing Maps add-on for MapInfo Pro.

    Move To

    The other feature that is included in the Bing Maps add-on is the Move To feature. The Move To feature allows you to search for countries, place names, locations, and addresses across the world. Once you have found the location you are looking for you can go to that place with a double-click.
    You can zoom to this location using your current scale or you can zoom to the best view of the location.
    You can access the Move To window via the Tool Windows dropdown on the Home tab.
    Let me give you a few examples.
    Let's search for the country where the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship take place: Germany. When I double-click on the word "Tyskland" in the Results list, I'm taken to a view of Germany in my map window. Tyskland is Danish for Germany so the Move To window can translate between several languages for names that differ across languages.
    The final game, where I hope Denmark will be one of the teams playing, will take place in Berlin. Let's search for Berlin and see the extent of the capital of Germany on our map.
    We also know that the final game will be played at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. let's look that up on our map too.
    As a final example, I'll search for a famous address in the Berlin city center: Alexanderplatz 1 Berlin.
    As you can see, the Move To feature can help me locate features at several levels.
    Let us try something outside of Germany too: Cholula Pyramid - a quite famous place in a very different part of the world.
    I hope this gave you a good view of the benefits of having the Bing Maps add-on for MapInfo Pro.



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    Peter Horsbøll Møller
    Principal Presales Consultant | Distinguished Engineer
    Precisely | Trust in Data
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