Hi Carl,
I haven't used UT under 5.5 but I do use it a lot under 5.0 and it works
really well, although there are a couple of annoying things that it does,
the worst being to add the name "_region", "_text" (or similar) to the final
coverage name. (Remember that arcview can only have one feature type in each
'table/theme' eg line, point, polygon, text so if you have these mixed in
mapinfo they will be split into different themes in arcview)
I have found UT to be reliable and with a bit of trial and error you can run
UT standard alone in batch mode (ie without MapInfo). Shape files do not
(to my knowledge) store cartographic properties (ie colour, line-style) etc.
This is contained in the arcview Apr file, so the cartographic aspects of
the data will need to be reconstructed from scratch (including thematics)
unless you can devise some translation program in mapbasic. A work around
could be to store the cartographic information in additional columns of the
data table or a seperate 'lookup' table which you also translate and relink
in arcview.
UT is smart enough to handle long column names - unlike other translation
programs that hack the name off after the first 10 characters - from memory
it stores the long name in the alias field of the table information.
The raster images should come across without any problem. The transfer of
the georegistration information is straught forward if the images are
aligned north/south. Arcview relates the location of an image to the
coordinate of the top left pixel, the ground width and height of each pixel
and the number of pixels across and down - mapinfo uses the known coordinate
of 3 or more pixels to position the raster.
I am unsure about the vertical mapper grids - never had a need for them -
but suspect they would translate the same as any collection of region
objects.
I would keep well clear of FME unless you have a few weeks to spare to learn
the system and have other jobs to fund its purchase. It is a real over-kill
for what you want and in fact UT is a smaller version of FME anyway.
In summary UT is brillant but expect to spend a couple of days experimenting
to get it right - it would also help if you had arcview on the same machine
or network so that you can check the results.
Best of luck
Martin
===================================
Martin Roundill
GIS Manager
Waitakere City Council
Private Bag 93109
Henderson
Waitakere City
New Zealand
Ph +64 9 836 8000 ext 8344
Fax +64 9 836 8001
email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
===================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Schaefer [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, 21 October 1999 19:51
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: MI MapInfo to ArcView Conversion Experiences
>
> Hello all,
>
> I have a client who needs a very large dataset (1 Gb of MI data)
> converted from MapInfo 4.1 to ArcView 3.1 This will include all
> types of data (point, polyline, regions, vertical mapper grids and
> tiffs, thematics, rasters, etc.) and their attributes. I know AV has a
> MIFSHAPE utility but exporting MIF then importing them to AV is
> going to be slow and won't solve my non-vector needs. Some
> questions...
>
> 1) If I upgrade MI to 5.5 and use the Universal Translator(UT) will my
> vector conversions go smoothly...that is colors, line types, symbol
> types all retained or do I just get black and default types? Any help
> on the raster end? How about batch processing? Does UT even go
> the MI to AV route?
>
> 2) Would purchasing the Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) be a
> better alternative, giving me more control over how things are
> converted? Is FME worth more on its own than the slimmed down
> UT?
>
> 3) Any other conversion utilities out there? commercial or otherwise?
>
> 4) Should my client just buy MI and save the time, energy and $$$
> of conversion and rebuilding the GIS in AV?
>
> Somebody else must have done this before. All experiences,
> problems, shortcomings, successes et al would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Carl
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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