MapInfo Pro

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  • 1.  MapInfo Monday: Zoom To

    Employee
    Posted 12-12-2022 11:15
    Are you ready for another #MapInfoMonday post? I hope you are for here it comes.

    Today we will look at zooming to something in your map window. I often end up with a selected object, a couple of selected objects, or an entire layer​ that I would like to zoom to in my map window. Luckily MapInfo Pro provides me with ways to do this.

    On the Map tab you can find the Zoom To dropdown next to the Zoom In and Zoom Out tools. From the Zoom To dropdown, you can quickly zoom to various things.

    You can zoom to the Entire Selection Layer which will use the base layer of your selection and zoom to the extent of this layer.

    You can zoom to the Extent of Selected Objects which zooms to an extent where the selected object or objects may fit.

    These two options are of course only active if you currently have an active selection.

    You can zoom to an Entire Layer which will use the data bounds of the layer and zoom to this extent. You may experience that the zoom is bigger than your current data. This can be the case if you have deleted records for a part of the area but haven't packed your table after this. The data extent is saved in the map file and may need packing when you delete records.

    When you use Entire Layer from the Zoom To dropdown, MapInfo Pro will ask you what layer you want to zoom to through the View Entire Layer dialog. From this dialog, you can select one of the layers in your map, or you can select All Layers which is similar to selecting zoom to Entire Map as mentioned below.

    You can zoom to the Entire Map which will use the extent of all your layers as the extent of your map. If you have base maps such as Bing or Open Street Map (OSM), these layers will also be considered.

    And finally, you can also zoom to the Nearest Tile Server Level. This will help you get a more crisp-looking base map when it comes from the Tile Server such as Bing or OSM. If you have multiple tile server layers open in your map, MapInfo Pro will prompt you to select the one you want to zoom to.

    All these zoom features will only affect your current map window.

    From the Find dropdown on the Map tab, you can also use Find to locate your current selection in all your windows. This will change all map and browser windows if they show the current selection.

    Be aware that find may or may not zoom and pan to the selected object in your map. The zoom part is controlled by a map preference in the Map Preference dialog under Editing. Under Find Selection Options, you can control if you want MapInfo Pro to Zoom on Find Selection. If you unselect this option, MapInfo Pro will only pan to the selection, and it will only pan if the selected object isn't already inside the map extent.

    Before I leave you again, I wanted to highlight that you can find many of these zoom features mentioned above in other places throughout the interface. Just like many other often-used features, we try to make these available to you in various places.

    From the Map context menu in the Explorer Window, you can zoom to the extent of your map via View Entire Map.

    From the Layer context menu in the Explorer Window, you can zoom to the extent of a layer via View Entire Layer. When you use View Entire Layer from this context menu, MapInfo Pro will not ask you for the layer as you have specified this via the layer you right-clicked on. You can also use zoom to the Extents of Selected Objects and Zoom to Nearest Tile Server Level from this context menu.

    And from the context menu in your map window, you can find these menu items: Find Selection, View Entire Layer, View Entire Selection Layer, and Nearest Tile Server Level.

    And a final note about how zoom to works in MapInfo Pro. By default, MapInfo Pro doesn't zoom very close to the selected object. It adds a certain amount of tolerance around the extent so that the selected objects if that's what you are zooming to, don't align exactly with the border of the map window.

    Here you can see how MapInfo Pro zooms to a selected polygon object.

    Notice that there is space between the selected polygon and the map border, both above and below the polygon. MapInfo Pro is adding around 12% to the extent before zooming to this extent. More precisely, it adds 1/16 of the extent to all sides of the extent.

    Below you can see a tighter zoom around the same polygon. I have calculated this zoom by dividing the zoom above by 112 and then multiplying it by 100: 2.865 mi / 112 = 0.02558 mi * 100 = 2.558 mi.

    And those were the words for this week's #MapInfoMonday! Questions are most welcome in the comments below.​

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