Hi Flavio, Lars and Andrew I absolutely agree with Flavio and Andrew regarding the format.
> >> MapInfo has the better data format (see my other mail to Lars) >Has it ? What objective argument leads you to that conclusion ? If you're >referring to the ability of the TAB format to hold multiple topography, I >find that to be mostly irrelevant, 1) since most use the tables for >single-topography data anyway, and 2) most users are annoyed by the >horrendeous old fashioned file system dependency compared to todays >standards. I guess we all "specialise" and use MapInfo in different ways. However Andrew comes from a sector that is very significant for any GIS vendor such as MapInfo and ESRI, I believe it represents something like 40% of UK sales. For any public sector organisation in Britain that uses Ordnance Survey data MapInfos data format towers over ESRI. The great,great shame is that even MapInfo do not market this advantage. Native MapInfo will comfortably hold a local authorities data, and render it very quickly to the screen. ESRIs native formats will not. The big big difference is the RTREE spatial index employed, meaning only the information thats needed on screen is read from the disk drive. I would suggest that for most Local Authorities Oracle Spatial is an unnecessary overhead - but is an essential component for any ESRI solution. Regards Bob @MapsByDesign.co.uk _______________________________________________ MapInfo-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.directionsmag.com/mailman/listinfo/mapinfo-l
