Hello Lars, Morgan et al Not only do I find mixed topography useful myself but many of our ordinary users do too. (Often in spite of my best efforts to persuade them otherwise!)
Sue Susan D Beetlestone Senior Corporate GIS Officer Powys County Council e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lars V. Nielsen (GisPro)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ellingham Morgan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 5:34 PM Subject: Re: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > Hi Morgen, > > > Ahh the never ending debate > > True, but even more relevant today, after years of stand-still on MapInfo's part ! > > >One comment in this string of emails I would like to pick up on. > > > >Handy maybe, but mixed topography tables usually throw MapInfo users > >into a fit. Single topology tables is not a severe limitation, > >and I'll wager that the vast majority of MapInfo tables are single > >topology anyway. > > > >Absolutely incorrect in my experience (..) > > As the culprit behind the statement, I need to ask you whether this is your personal experience as a super user, or an opinion > ordinary users have given you ? > > My point wasn't that it was a bad feature - for super users - on the contrary. I personally think it's a neat thing with many > applications. But I fear this sentiment isn't shared by too many ordinary users. And the majority of data I've seen at multiple > customers is de-facto single topology. > > Best regards/Med venlig hilsen > Lars V. Nielsen > GisPro, Denmark > http://www.gispro.dk/ > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ellingham Morgan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 12:36 AM > Subject: RE: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > > > Ahh the never ending debate, I used the ESRI products at uni and found > them excellent to conduct my research and present my results > graphically, I am now in the workforce and use MI extensively - and have > found it good enough to do my work easily and efficiently. > > Neither is technically better or worse, or may I say easier to learn. > ESRI's base packages are pretty simple, it's the weird and wonderful > extensions that get people worried (network analyst any1?). > > One comment in this string of emails I would like to pick up on. > > >Handy maybe, but mixed topography tables usually throw MapInfo users > into a fit. Single topology tables is not a severe limitation, > and I'll wager that the vast majority of MapInfo tables are single > topology anyway. > > Absolutely incorrect in my experience, this excellent MapInfo feature > has allowed me to combine open space areas (turf, sports fields) with > infrastructure data (points - lights, litter bins etc) - on many > occasions this has proven to be the difference between going ahead with > our surveillance and not. I would estimate that 75% of all of our civil > spatial data has a mixed topology - something I would assume would be > universal across local government institutions. > > Each has their Positives and negatives Arc+ = Layouts, high end > advanced analysis, X tools! Arc- = Cost, compartment syndrome. MI+ = > stand alone package, cost, universal translator, labelling ! MI- = > printing, map creation. > > Just my opinion as a humble end user people - thanks for letting me > waste my morning whilst looking like im working > > Morgan > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Canfield, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, 19 February 2005 1:07 AM > To: 'Frank, Claude'; MapInfo-L > Subject: RE: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > > > Sorry I should have put that. The ESRI systems we currently use here are > 3.X > - 8.3 and we will be getting upgrades to v.9 pretty soon but as of yet I > haven't had any experience with it other than demoing it to see if we > wanted > to upgrade some of our 8.3 stuff to v.9. Our current MapInfo versions > are > v.5 - v.7.8. I only have one user with 7.8 though the bulk of them are > still > running 6.5. So basically the user comparasons are based on MapInfo 6.5 > against ESRI 8.3 because my dual users seem to most often have this > setup on > their machines as far as versions go. > Andy > > -----Original Message----- > From: Frank, Claude [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 6:54 AM > To: MapInfo-L > Subject: RE: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > > > Just curious-are these impressions reflective of the latest version of > ArcGIS (v.9) or more about ESRI prodcuts historically? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Canfield, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:39 AM > To: 'Flavio Hendry'; Lars V. Nielsen (HVM); MapInfo-L > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > > > I agree. I have to teach new users here. MapInfo is very intuitive for > Windows users. It functions very much like a Windows application. ESRI > functions like a Unix application. We have both types of users here and > people who are used to Unix seem to pick up ESRI tools faster than those > who are used to Windows only. > > MapInfo also wraps a lot of functionality into one touch buttons and > walk through dialogs such as the afore mentioned "update column". I mean > I suppose you could break it down by Windows UI design guidelines and > see all the places ESRI breaks from that. > > One of the really hard things for people to get used to is the palette > style tool sets which exist outside the main UI. Where you have your > palette such as ArcToolBox and you use it's functions on the data you > are working on in your editor. This is completely foreign to most > Windows users. In ways like this it functions far more like apps that > originated on Unix such as Gimp and Microstation than it does like a > Windows app. > > In MapInfo everything is contained in a single UI tools are loaded from > that UI into that UI. If a tool is to big it becomes it's own > application such as MapMarker which you run on your data, close it down > and load the data into MapInfo. I won't say the UI for MapInfo is more > intuitive because it seems to depend on the users background. But for > the probably 80% of my users who have only ever known Windows they pick > it up much faster than they do the ESRI tools. About 20% of my user come > from a Unix background and work on Sun Solaris machines. They definitely > have an easier time with ESRI than do my Windows only users. I can't > probably prove this in concrete numbers but I can attest to it's > validity from watching numerous users over the years. > > The single biggest complaint I get from users besides "they are hard to > use" about ESRI tools is "they are slow". The users are correct in this. > Take any large dataset of single geometry and load it into MapInfo and > work with it doing just simple editing, then take that same data set as > a shapefile and do the same edits in ArcInfo or ArcEditor. There is a > huge performance difference. > > On the other hand ESRI tools are much more extensible than MapInfo due > to their enormous COM objects library and their internal VBA support. > But if you aren't at least fairly comfortable with writing programs this > does no good. It's like the VBA inside AutoCAD and now Microstation. You > can do a lot with it but most of my users don't even know it's there let > alone how to use it. > > I really believe that they target two separate markets of users. However > many shops try and make them both fit and both companies try and be > everything to everybody. I think users would be wise to take a good look > at what they are doing and see which of the two programs most closely > fits their work and datasets. > > I would not say that one is better than the other in either direction > because some things are much easier in one than the other and vice > versa. Luckily I work at a company where we support and use both so I > can switch back and forth and we use FME a lot too which makes for easy > moving from one file format to the other. > > Andy > > -----Original Message----- > From: Flavio Hendry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 4:35 AM > To: Lars V. Nielsen (HVM); MapInfo-L > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: MI-L Differences between MapInfo and ArcView. > > > hi lars > > > Again, this is a general and unproven statement, easy to say but more > > difficult to substantiate. I would like to find out whether this > > statement is really true. > > I doubt there is a way to prove that. My statement is based on more > then fifteen year of experiance in the gis fields (and if I add the one > of my collegues about fifty years). The experiance is (as well throug > giving many training courses for MI and ArcGIS) that ArcGIS has in a > lot of ways very odd terms and often completely ununderstandable menu > structure/naming - such as "go find it" ... I experience that as well > myself ... "where is that thing again?", "how did they call it?" ... I > disagree that it hat to do to more to the "additional" features, in > ArcGIS there are not too many of them ... and there are some really > crucial ones missing (such as thematic mapping using expressions, > imagine, not there!, or try to update columns as you do in MapInfo ... > have to learn VBA ... I suppose most people do not know what VBA > is ...). > > Basically our long years exeperience with many clients is: MapInfo is > far more intuitive and let us say closer to the Windows (or Microsoft) > way of doing things, people are just used to it from MS programs ... > where ArcGIS has (historically) its own slang, if you speak it you are > go along fine, just have to learn it, there the curve comes in ... But > if you want to see something really quirky in terms of absolutely not > undersandable stuff you might have a look at manifold ........... just > made me throw it out the window within minutes ... > > Anbout the extenions mentioned by Rich: There are many MapInfo third > party extensions which are more powerful and lot less expensive (such > as Engage 3D from Encom beats everything 3D and Spatial Analyst do ... > for a third of the price ... mindblowing that thing). And there are > more out there, such as MapCAD, MapPLOT and so on ... > > ciao > flavio > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15333 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15335 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15336 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15339 > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15349 > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 15360 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 15379
