MapInfo Pro is a desktop

geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...

(GIS) software developed by Precisely, used for mapping and location analysis. It was formerly developed by Pitney Bowes Software and the

MapInfo Corporation MapInfo Corporation, initially incorporated as Navigational Technologies Incorporated, was a company that developed location intelligence software. It was headquartered in North Greenbush, New York. Its products included a desktop mapping app ...

History

Version 4 of the product, released in 1995, saw the product renamed to "MapInfo Professional".MapInfo vs. Arc/Info Comparison
/ref> Version 9.5 was released in June 2008, bringing a new graphics engine and editing features. Version 10, released June 2009, redesigned the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

. Version 16 of MapInfo Pro 64 bit was released in September 2016. Notable features include redesigned Ribbon interface, new interactive interface for thematic mapping, WFS 2.0 and WMTS support, Geopackage support. Python support was added in v17.0 (April 2018).

System Features

Data Format

MapInfo Pro is a database which manages information as a system of Tables. Each table is either a map file (graph) or a database file (text) and is denoted the file extension .TAB. Objects (points, lines,

polygons In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon' ...

) can be enhanced to highlight specific variations on a theme through the creation of a

Thematic map A thematic map is a type of map that portrays the geographic pattern of a particular subject matter (theme) in a geographic area. This usually involves the use of map symbols to Geovisualization, visualize selected properties of geographic fe ...

. The basic data is overlaid with graphic styles (e.g. colour shades, hatch patterns) to display information on a more sophisticated level. For example, population density between urban and rural areas may show the cities in deep red (to indicate a high ratio of inhabitants per square mile), while showing remote areas in very pale red (to indicate a low concentration of inhabitants). Retrieval of information is conducted using data filters and "Query" functions . Selecting an object in a map window or records in a browser produces a temporary table that provides a range of values specified by the end-user. More advanced "Structured Query Language" (SQL) analysis allows the user to combine a variety of operations to derive answers to complex questions. This may involve a combination of tables and resultant calculations may be such as the number of points in polygons, proportional overlaps, and statistical breakdowns. The quantity and quality of the attributes associated with objects are dependent on the structure of the original tables.

Vector analysis Vector calculus or vector analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in three-dimensional Euclidean space, \mathbb^3. The term ''vector calculus'' is sometimes used as a ...

is a primary function of MapInfo based on X, Y coordinates and the user can create and edit data directly with commands such as: node editing, combine, split, erase, buffer, clip region. MapInfo Pro includes a range of engineering “CAD like” drawing and editing tools such as lines, circles, and polygons (referred to as "regions") which can be incorporated into tables or drawn as temporary overlays.

Compatibility with External Software Systems

MapInfo Pro can read and write other file formats for data exchange with applications such as: * ESRI Shapefile and

AutoCAD DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a computer-aided design (CAD) data file format developed by Autodesk to enable CAD data exchange and interoperability between AutoCAD on different computing platforms. His ...

* CSV and delimited

ASCII ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...

text *

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows, macOS, Android (operating system), Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a ...

and

Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational database, relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsof ...

* Bitmaps or Raster Formats such as GeoTIFF, ECW, Mr. SID,

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

, PNG, MRR * Spatial Databases:

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PostGIS PostGIS ( ) is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). PostGIS is ...

, SQL Server, SQLite and GeoPackage *

Open Geospatial Consortium The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international voluntary consensus standards organization that develops and maintains international standards for geospatial content and location-based services, sensor web, Internet of Things, Geographi ...

Web Services: Web Feature Service, Web Map Service, Catalog Service for the Web * Web Base Maps:

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

, OpenStreetMap (OSM)

Historical Notes

With MapInfo Professional, the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) created hundreds of maps for the longest torch relay in the history of the modern games. The Olympic Torch Relay covered 26,940 kilometres (16,740 miles) in 100 days and traversed Australia by road, railway and boat. The torch route was designed to ensure that more than 85 percent of the Australian population was within a one-hour drive of the chosen route, which passed through 1,000 towns. In addition, TNT Express used MapInfo to map more than 5,500 delivery routes to deliver Olympic tickets to more than 400,000 Australian homes.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://www.precisely.com/product/precisely-mapinfo/mapinfo-pro
Pitney Bowes Software's MapInfo Professional Support Page

LI360, MapInfo user community

Review: Mapping the world with GIS wares

MapInfo Discussion List

Directions Magazine review of MapInfo Professional v11
GIS software