My sad hallelujah moment…

Published on April 27, 2012 in MapInfo Professional. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Some readers may well agree with the “sad” part of the title. Other, perhaps more technically minded people may well have created, begged or borrowed their own solution. However, I wanted to appeal to the good folk out there who are willing to share my “hallelujah” moment..

This may well indicate how often I actually now get to play with MapInfo Professional in anger, but the other day I had the need to create a sample (subset) geographic area from a set of national data sets. The major hurdle I had to cross was that I had about 30 TAB files to contend with. My initial reaction of old was to begin trawling the interweb for hooky MBX scripts written in 1998 which would get me so far…but it was here that I had my first revelation [the continued religious references are purely unintentional].

I thought I would first check within the many (and I mean many) functions tucked away within Engage 3D to see if therein would lie the answer to my prayers [honest to..no, better not]. I have long been singing the praises of Engage 3D, not only as a competent ultimate successor to Vertical Mapper; the engine behind Crime Profiler; but also for its plethora of built in functions which, put simply, make a MapInfo Professional users life easier.

Lo and behold…a simple traverse of Utilities -> Object -> Clip to Polygon led me to take a celebratory trip downstairs to make a cup of tea much earlier than planned [you can tell I work from home]. All the options I required (work on copies of data, choose which layers in my workspace to clip, and what filename suffix to provide) were there… and I was finished with a next, next, next.

 Well it pleased me anyway…

 

Peter

Are you a MapInfo Professional?

Published on April 19, 2012 in MapInfo Professional. 1 Comment Tags: .

Mornin’ All!

My, some time has passed since the last blog and I can only apologise. Things have been a bit hectic recently, but that can only be a good thing right..?

There has been some feverish work over the last couple of months to get the latest release of Stratus up and running (I was going to say “out the door”, but that harks back to the days where some form of CD or update would be shipped). As a SaaS application, i’m happy to say that things are… just….there! I hope to provide more details regarding the latest Stratus release on this bloggage very shortly!

The main aim for breaking radio silence this time is to bring some very exciting news (which may not be news to some of you) of the launch of a new journal – “The MapInfo Professional” (I’m not going to give out any prizes for guessing what it covers…) … The purpose of this journal is to help our customers to be more successful with MapInfo Professional!  Each issue will contain tips, tricks, advice, best practices and more.  We also plan to hold the occasional contest, solicit contributions from the community and will try and have a little bit of fun along the way.  If you would like to see the first issue, click here.  Please subscribe and help make the journal a real success!

 MapInfo Journal

An update from Patch

Published on January 3, 2012 in Maintenance releases. 1 Comment Tags: , .

First of all, a very happy new year to all! We at PBBI hope the festive season brought merriment, cheer and a plethora of gifts.  I, for one, was mightily excited to receive a MapAction T-Shirt. An essential gift for all us geo-peeps!

Anyway, enough about myself…i’m here in an attempt to prolong the festive cheer into the January gloom with the help of my 4-legged friend patch. His tail has been wagging non stop since the maintenance release of MapInfo Professional (11.0.3) in mid December and he has finally grabbed a spot (no pun intended) on the blog.

Woof!

Highlights in this release include:

  • Improved sorting capabilities in Browser window
  • Support for Google Enterprise Tile Server
  • Read labels from a MWS workspace into MI Pro
  • Write Label Overrides into a MWS
  • Read/Write Translucency settings for a MWS
  • New Automatic update of metadata stored in MapInfo Manager 

A number of issues have also been addressed including some for the EasyLoader utility. Here is the link to download the patch from our Web site.  (Customers can also click on Help > Check for Update in MapInfo Professional). 

http://www.pbinsight.com/support/product-downloads/item/mapinfo-professional-v11.0.3-maintenance-release

The last bullet point about updating metadata stored in MapInfo Manager automatically is noteworthy. Many of us will know only too well the pain in not only collecting, but maintaining up to date metadata. MapInfo Manager certainly helps ease the pain of metadata collection (or harvesting)..and provides a mechanism for wholesale updating of record elements if and where appropriate. Time is money! What this small MapInfo Professional update brings to the party is the ability to cater for the constant update of the datasets themselves whereby you would require certain metadata record elements updating without manual intervention (i’m thinking namely dataset update date and the bounds). A great example of our products working together to make your lives easier!

But I have delayed Patch’s update for too long! He is also keen to mention that the Discover 2011.0.3 (Build 20) maintenance release is now available, incorporating Discover 3D (a mouthful even for Patch!). This release is available for both the single Discover and Combined Discover/MapInfo Pro Bundle installations:

  • Encom Discover 2011.0.3 (including Discover 3D)
  • Encom Discover 2011.0.3 MapInfo Professional Bundle (including Discover 3D) – this bundle also incorporates the MapInfo Pro 11.0.3 maintenance release.

 This maintenance release is a full installation, and therefore does not require Discover to be previously installed. It can be downloaded via the Downloads page of the PBBI website or   the Discover>Discover Help>Check for Update menu option within Discover 2011.

For those that are unfamiliar with Discover, its broad tagline is “The GIS for Geoscience users” and is aimed at organisations that require geological, geochemical, geophysical & statistical analysis of datasets. Of broader applicability, environmental management and water authorities (or Lead Local Flood Authorities for that matter) may be interested in the Hydrology module’s ability to extract and vectorise drainage features and watershed/catchment boundaries from digital elevation models…a January thought for the day…

Happy New Year!

Peter & Patch (woof!)

 

 

Barnsley celebrates GIS Day, and you should too!

Published on November 17, 2011 in Events. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough CouncilHello.  Did you know that November 16th was World GIS Day?  The good folks at the Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council sure did.  They hosted a very successful event at the council offices with PBBI acting as a sponsor.  The event was kicked off by Phil Coppard OBE, the Barnsley Council Chief Executive and also included presentations from members of the GIS team including Andrew d’Andilly and Riley Marsden.  Topics covered included Ordnance Survey data usage, applied examples of GIS usage in the council and a preview of the new Barnsley Property Account application (yes, this application is using MapInfo Stratus, of course!).  PBBI contributed to the agenda by hosting a side track of technical sessions on MapInfo Professional and MapInfo Manager.

The participants were not only from Barnsley, a number of neighbouring councils were invited to attend as well.  An overall goal for the event was to try and encourage further adoption of GIS within the councils by sharing examples of how the technology is applied.  We know we succeeded in this as quite a number of followup conversations are planned within Barnsley and with some of the other councils who attended.

… and you should too!

So, aside from a good story, what’s in it for all of you reading this?  I would like to suggest to all of our readers that you too should consider hosting some form of GIS event in the future.  You need not wait for the next World GIS day, either.  If your organisation has a GIS team you might want to consider organising a day where you invite your whole team, other departments and perhaps even

Andy d'Andilly presenting on the council's GIS plans and strategy.

other organisations to participate.  This sort of event might be a fairly large affair which requires plenty of advance planning and organisation but please don’t let that scare you off.  You can always start with a less ambitious agenda.  Also, if you are not part of a GIS department or even if you are a single MapInfo Professional user you should consider how you can promote the work that you do to your organisation.  And finally, if you do consider holding an event you should definitely let your local PBBI partner and/or your local PBBI office know.  There are plenty of us who like to get out of the office and we can support you in a variety of ways.

- Tom Probert…

Three, it’s the magic number…

Published on November 2, 2011 in Industry. 3 Comments Tags: .

From De La Soul to Denis Irwin. 3 is the magic number.

Last week we passed our third birthday on the Stratus blog, so once again I’d like to start by thanking you all for taking your time to visit us and have a read. This will however be the final entry for the Stratus blog, as we’ll be moving house soon to a combined PBBI site which will bring you not just news on MapInfo Stratus but all other offerings in the GIS suite and beyond. You may have noticed that the content on the blog has very much diversified in the time that Mark and I have been writing. MapInfo Stratus isn’t just about having an isolated web mapping application, but part of our on going mission to provide you with a GIS ecosystem through metadata and data management, desktop, web GIS and much more. Over the past few years many of you have begun to take advantage of offerings from PBBI outside the GIS space. For example the Spectrum data quality platform helping you to get your data in good shape before plugging in the GIS. Last month the US saw it’s formal launch of the Geosk online data store – something which will be rolled out in other territories soon. Recently we announced the first external launch of MapInfo Spatial Server – the engine which has been used for some time underneath MapInfo Stratus.  So as we continue to progress it becomes less about an individual product but about how we can provide capabilities for a solution.  I hope you’ll find the new blog as informative – maybe more so – in learning more about whats going on in PBBI and how it can benefit you and your needs.

Hopefully a redirect will appear on this page along with all the content migrated soon, but you can find out all the news here: http://www.pbinsight.com/blog/

Finally my thanks to everyone for contributing to this blog over the past three years, it has been fantastic to meet people all across the world who’ve read this and enjoyed our ramblings, opinions and occasional good bits of information. Both Mark and I have appreciated your support,

Enjoy,

Chris M

Forrester help us see the social media future for customer communications…

Published on October 20, 2011 in Industry. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It's Social Media Baby...

The second day of the PBBI EMEA Partner conference saw a mix of PBBI and guest presenters. Most interesting for me, was Peter O’Neill, VP & Principal Analyst from Forrester Research. The nice thing about presentations from an analyst like Forrester is they’ve done their home work. Whether or not you agree with what is said or not, at least they’ve got some interesting research and facts to go on. So when I saw Peters topic of “Cloud and Social Media transforming IT and Customer Communications” I thought this could be good. The danger of these kind of topics are the listener being over powered with buzz word (or similar phrase) bingo and the title alone risked this. Peter chose to break down the subject into three to observe what is happening today compared with how things used to be, beginning with “social media empowering consumers.” Continue reading ‘Forrester help us see the social media future for customer communications…’

Austrians travel to Hungary for cheap Viagra…

Published on October 17, 2011 in Events and Industry. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
Why does my wife not believe these trips are all work?

Why does my wife not believe these trips are all work?

Yes you did read that right. It was one of the more eye catching things I learnt last week on the first day of the EMEA PBBI partner conference in Prague. I thought I would try to bring you a few highlights of the event. As many of you know I spend most of my time in Eastern Europe when I’m not at home, working with an extremely enthusiastic and diverse group of PBBI partners. It is always eye opening to see your technology being used far and wide, and a stark reminder that when we first come out with an idea for something, you can rely on our partners to take it further and wider, and use it in ways we never imagined.

So in the first afternoon in the emerging markets group, we had a round robin of partners presenting on some of their projects that they have been working on in the past twelve months. As the first partner meeting for all PBBI partners there is more diversity than ever. Continue reading ‘Austrians travel to Hungary for cheap Viagra…’

MapInfo Spatial Server – Come and Get it…

Published on October 5, 2011 in Industry. 2 Comments Tags: .

It’s been a busy old time recently, so my apologies for not posting recently. While I’m trying to ctach up with things, i wanted to share with you that a few months ago we ran an interview with Tom Myers, the product manager for MapInfo Spatial Server. That interview was done while we were running the software on project specific items only, but now I’m pleased to say the first commercial release of the on premise version is now available. Please contact your PBBI rep for further information. No doubt you’ll be hearing more about it soon with another release scheduled before the end of the year before the cloud model is also released.

In the meantime, if you missed the directions magazine webinar featuring Tom, on hopw a major telco has laready embraced MapInfo Spatial Server, then you can head on over there now to hear it again.

Enjoy

Chris M

All hype and no trousers?

Published on August 18, 2011 in Industry. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

All Hype and no trousers? You decide...

I thought some of you might be interested in looking at this years Gartner Hype Cycle for emerging technologies. It might help a little if I put it next to the 2010 chart so you can see for yourself whats moved up and down, which you can see below. Clicking on either of the pictures will give you a larger more legible version.

As usual there are a few things that catch the eye. Firstly, obviously inspired by my 3Dimensional rambling, there are a couple of entries in that space. Whilst 3D printing hasn’t really moved from 2010, there is an entry for 3D bioprinting – yea I had to look that one up – wow! However 3D TV’s which last year looked to be heading to the peak of inflated expectations is missing from 2011’s chart.Another consumer item last year was the e-book reader heading into that trough, is said in 2011 to be coming well out of it. In fact thats one technology which also shows up in 2009 at the top of that peak. Logically for me it’s something which should be dead on arrival. Price aside there are far superior technologies in the market which offer portable digital reading. Yet perhaps through the battery life and e-ink screens they are showcases for a single device excelling at one thing it is designed to. Not to say you can’t get a good experience elsewhere, but these things excel and consequently they sell.

Into a couple of topics closer to us, cloud computing is pitched as past the peak “en route” to the trough, along with augmented reality. The former given 2-5 years to reach mainstream adoption, the latter 5-10. Cloud/Web platforms seem a little further along as do hosted virtual desktops, the latter said to be mainstream inside 2 years – a sign of IT infrastructure changes coming your way?

Movers and shakers - 2010 vs 2011 - click on the image for a larger version

Finally two items of note seem to be through the slope of enlightnement and into the mainstream. Firstly Predictive Analytics, something with location and GIS have a lot to give, looks to be continuing to edge further right from 2010 with again adoption less than two years away. Second, location aware applications were listed on that slope as 2-5 years away in 2010, yet by this year they are placed in the mainstream. Adoption of smart phones have something to do with this perhaps?

I don’t know about you, but I take these things with a pinch of salt. Items regularly appear and disappear. One thing I do notice though is that in 2010’s chart it seemed there was a fairly even spread of technology throughout the cycle. Yet in 2011 it seems a lot busier on the technology trigger side. If we can finally break the financial shackles which seem to have been on us forever, are we about to see a significant technology boom? If that is anything to go by, then the answer must be yes! Exciting time ahead – we hope so.

Chris M

PS – Many thanks to Peter Horsbøll Møller for pointing out this years hype cycle.

MapInfo 1.2 is now Finnished…

Published on August 15, 2011 in Datasheet and Events. 0 Comments Tags: .

MapInfo Manager, now harvesting PostGIS - I think thats open source isn't it :-)

So fresh for a Monday morning and a shocking pun to start the week. I’m pleased to say that MapInfo Manager version 1.2 is now complete and will be available for you very shortly. Below are some of the new features and enhancements including harvesting of PostGIS, harvesting of non spatial formats, greater flexibility, security and localised into Danish and Finnish.

MapInfo Manager was introduced into the product portfolio around last October time, first in beta before version 1.0 in December. We are still seeing a very positive reaction to this offering, so the addition of more spatial formats and for the first time non spatial formats is a great addition. More over this version adds in greater flexibility as well as greater connectivity to other parts of the portfolio. Don’t get me wrong, they all work brilliantly on their own, but obviously it makes sense that MapInfo Pro can now not only read a MapInfo Manager catalogue, but also add to that catalogue. And because it’s still OGC compliant that catalogue can then immediately be shared across and beyond organisation and platform. There are many more enhancements, many making the workflow simpler for you, but some of the bigger ones include:

  • Tables and views can now be harvested and synchronized from SQL Server 2008 and PostGIS database management systems. Options to identify the list of tables to harvest are all tables, only spatial tables, tables in the MAPCATALOG or a custom query. Views can also be harvested.
  • You can now harvest additional non-spatial data types: MapInfo Workspaces (.MWS) and user-specified (.wor, .doc, .pdf, .zip etc). This is useful when building a metadata library where you would like supporting files and documentation alongside your spatial data.
  • Records can now be edited via a powerful find and replace operation. Text strings in multiple records can be searched and updated by matching partial and whole words, case and by using wildcards.
  • MapInfo Manager’s new Library Service provides improved integration with client applications, such as MapInfo Professional 11.0. MapInfo Manager users can simply provide clients with the URL to the managed data. Pro users set up a connection to the Library Service under Web Services Preferences and test the connection. If the machine is available, the Pro user will see the Library and Catalogs from MapInfo Manager in Catalog Browser. In addition to viewing the data, Pro users can also add un-managed records to the managed Library.
  • Application-level security is now offered in MapInfo Manager. This is an optional configuration that, when implemented, will require users to log in with a username and password.
  • Additional metadata fields for ISO/GMD/INSPIRE and GEMINI 2.1 have been added, including spatial resolution, temporal and vertical extents.
  • Harvesting data and adding metadata records to Catalogs is now available as a combined operation for more efficient data management. The option to add records to Catalogues separately from harvesting is still available.

Want to learn more about MapInfo Manager, have a look here or at some of our previous articles here.

Enjoy

Chris M