Warren Vick, Europa Technologies Ltd. a �crit : > Hi Bob, > > With SHP vs. MIF/MID, it's not so much a preference but a industry > observation. The formats that organisations use to share data is largely > down to the platform they have chosen and we all know that MapInfo is strong > in some areas an ESRI in others. The change is use of Shapefiles has changed > my view of GIS formats as I believe it blurs the distinction between > separate "use" and "export" formats. > > Of the technical merits, MIF/MID was obviously designed to be simple to read > but cannot be reasonably used for viewing. I think perhaps the number of > people reading MIF/MID in their own code might be outweighed by the number > who would find it useful to view an export format directly. Reading the > open-spec parts of SHP (and flipping integer endian) is not difficult, and > is certainly faster than parsing text.
Hi Warren, Bob and the others, One other underestimated advantage of MIF/MID format is its ability to transfer the projection and the symbology used for drawing data (even if it is strongly linked to MapInfo Symbols). Since shapefile cannot transmit them directly (and most peoples forget to put a .prj file along with the shp, shx and dbx files), it is often difficult to use shapefile directly with other data, so it remains a complex, however incomplete exchange format, at least for me. -- Michel Wurtz MAAPAR - http://www.agriculture.gouv.fr --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 10311
