MapInfo Pro

OpenStreetMap (also known as OSM) is a free, editable map of the world volunteers. About a month ago, on August 22nd, 2024, they had their 20th anniversary. Read more about OpenStreetMap on their website.

Most of us use OSM regularly. The Precisely Maps in MapInfo Pro are based on OSM. Many websites use OSM as their base map, and some of you probably have contributed to OSM in some way or form.

Getting OSM in raster form into MapInfo Pro has been easy for many years via the Tile Server tables. Getting OSM as vector data into MapInfo Pro has always been tricky.

OpenStreetMap tagging

Before we dive into using the OSMnx module to extract data, I wanted to introduce the OpenStreetMap tagging system. This is important to have an understanding of to be able to query OpenStreetMap data.

The data in OpenStreetMap isn't grouped into multiple datasets or tables as you normally would work with your data in MapInfo Pro. This also means that you can't just download all the buildings or roads from OpenStreetMap. Instead, all records are stored in a database and "grouped" using a tagging system. This makes it highly flexible as you can add as many or as few tags to each element. It also makes it easy to implement new ways to group your data as you just start adding a new tag.

The OSM community has decided on certain key-value pair combinations for the most commonly used tags.

To get an understanding of the various tags, I'd recommend that you read more about the tagging and the OSM map features here: OSM Map Features. I have also personally used this OpenStreetMap map interface to inspect various map features. This also helps you understand what tags you can use to filter out the map features you are looking for.

Installing the OSMnx Python Module

I tried installing the OSMnx Python module using Pip and that worked fine for me.

From the Python310 folder in your MapInfo Pro installation folder, right-click on the file prompt.bat and then click on Run as Administrator.

Use the DOS command cd to position yourself in the Python310 subfolder in the MapInfo Pro installation folder.

Now use this command to download and install the OSMnx module:

python -m pip install OSMnx

Writing Python in MapInfo Pro

With those two functions, it is easy to download and open data from OpenStreetMap.

These 3 lines of code download the data into Geopackage:

tags = {"building": True}
tabName = 'building'
requestInto_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, tags, point, dist)

The tags variable controls which features I download from OpenStreetMap. The tabName variable controls what table I save the data to. The last line calls the function to download and save the OpenStreetMap data to GeoPackage.

These 3 lines of code open the GeoPackage table into a map in MapInfo Pro:

tabName = 'building'
fileTab = os.path.join(path_temp, tabName + '.tab')
open_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, fileTab, map)

The tabName variable holds the name of the table in the GeoPackage database and the fileTab variable holds the file name of the MapInfo TAB file. In the third line, I call the function to open the GeoPackage table into a map in MapInfo Pro.

Let's also inspect the two functions a bit more closely.

def requestInto_GPKGtable(fileGPKG, tabName, tags, point, distance):
    print('{0}: features_from_point for {1}...'.format(getTime(), tags))
    gdf = ox.features_from_point(point, tags, dist=distance)
    print('{0} Returned records: {1} as {2}'.format(getTime(), len(gdf), tabName))
    gdf.to_file(fileGPKG, driver='GPKG', layer=tabName, OVERWRITE=True)
    print('{0} Saved to layer: {1}'.format(getTime(), tabName))
    del gdf

The function requestInto_GPKGtable takes five parameters: The name of the GeoPackage database, fileGPKG, and the table, tabName, to save the data into. The tags parameter controls what map features to download from OpenStreetMap. The point and distance parameters are used to limit the map features geographically.

The function ox.features_from_point downloads map features from OpenStreetMap into a GeoPandas Data Frame, gdf.

The line gdf.to_file saves the data from the GeoPandas Data Frame into a file, in this case, a GeoPackage database. You can also use this function to save the data into other spatial formats, say ESRI Shape or GeoJSON file.

Finally, I delete the DataFrame with this statement: del gdf.

def open_GPKGtable(fileGPKG, tabName, tabFileName, map):
    pro.RunMapBasicCommand('Register Table "{0}" TYPE "GPKG" TABLE "{1}" Into "{2}"'.format(fileGPKG, tabName, tabFileName))
    tab = pro.Catalog.OpenTable(tabFileName)
    map.Layers.AddLayer(tab.Alias)

The function openPPKGtable takes four parameters. The name of the GeoPackage database, fileGPKG, and the table, tabName, holding the data to open into MapInfo Pro. The name of the MapInfo TAB file, tabFileName, to create pointing to the table in the GeoPackage database. The map to add the table to.

Not all MapBasic statements have matching Python statements. I use the RunMapBasicCommand function to create a MapInfo TAB file referencing the table in the GeoPackage database using a MapBasic statement.

The variable pro refers to the running instance of MapInfo Pro. For this instance of MapInfo Pro, there is a Catalog which helps you work with and manage the datasets. I can use the method OpenTable on the Catalog to open another table into MapInfo Pro.

For the map, the property Layers has a method called AddLayer that allows me to add a new layer to the map.

The main part of the Python code sets the name of the GeoPackage database to use, it grabs the center and the zoom from the map and it configure the OSMnx module.

path_temp = pro.EvalMapBasicCommandEx('PathToDirectory$(TempFileName$(""))')
filename_gpkg = 'osm.gpkg'
filename_gpkg = os.path.join(path_temp, filename_gpkg)

map = pro.Maps.MostRecentMap

pro.RunMapBasicCommand('Set CoordSys Earth Projection 1, 104')
pro.RunMapBasicCommand('Set Distance Units "m"')

lat = map.Center.Y
long = map.Center.X 
point = (lat, long)

dist = map.Zoom
print('{0}: Center Lat: {1} Long: {2} Zoom, m: {3}'.format(getTime(), lat, long, dist))

ox.settings.use_cache = True
ox.settings.cache_folder = path_temp
ox.settings.log_console = True

I also close the tables that I'm about to open as they may already be open and in this example, I delete the Geopackage database.

tab = pro.Catalog.Tables['building']
if tab:
    tab.Close()
tab = pro.Catalog.Tables['forest']
if tab:
    tab.Close()
tab = pro.Catalog.Tables['roads']
if tab:
    tab.Close()

if os.path.exists(filename_gpkg):
    os.remove(filename_gpkg)

Finally, I can download and open the map features from OpenStreetMap into the number of tables that make sense to me.

#--- Downloading Features from OSM to GPKG ---------------------------
tags = {"building": True}
tabName = 'building'
requestInto_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, tags, point, dist)

tags = {"landuse": 'forest'}
tabName = 'forest'
requestInto_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, tags, point, dist)

tags = {"highway": True}
tabName = 'roads'
requestInto_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, tags, point, dist)

#--- Opening tables pointing to GPKG tables ---------------------------
tabName = 'building'
fileTab = os.path.join(path_temp, tabName + '.tab')
open_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, fileTab, map)

tabName = 'forest'
fileTab = os.path.join(path_temp, tabName + '.tab')
open_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, fileTab, map)

tabName = 'roads'
fileTab = os.path.join(path_temp, tabName + '.tab')
open_GPKGtable(filename_gpkg, tabName, fileTab, map)

Below you can see the data that I have downloaded into MapInfo Pro using the script above. The data comes without styling so this part is up to you.

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