Søren Breddam wrote:
This shouldn't be hard to implement.. Topology is obviously more difficult.
If the topology issue was implemented, we could sell our license to
Microstation ;-) And do even more interesting queries.
Well, in the beginning, MapInfo decided to use a simple model that
didn't need the rigorous set up that topology requires. When MI came
out, it was trivial to make a map -- you just drew what you wanted and
presto! You had a map. From the very beginning they were after the
business market, not the science people. In fact MapInfo's first product
was more like a pin-map tool to locate customers, franchises, etc. i.e.
strictly business. It's also why they've resisted being called a GIS,
opting instead for "desktop mapping." Business people don't know GIS,
and don't wan to know GIS, but they're bang alongside things that are as
accessible as a "desktop." MapInfo basically made a tool that could
associate data with drawings, which is actually a fairly powerful concept.
The alternative was Acr/INFO. To use that, you needed to understand GIS
at the techno-weenie level and build your map objects by first
establishing the nodes, then snap the arcs to those (assigning to and
from nodes) and then build polygons by assigning ids to the left and
right sides of the arcs. To do all this properly generaly took some
time, but in the end, you were assured that operations like dissolving
smaller areas into larger ones, or finding adjacent polygons or
traversing a network all became pretty straight-forward when you could
use arc-node topological math.
Personally, I prefer ESRI's model because I like the internal
consistency that topology adds. I also like their idea of associating
style information with data attributes rather than making it part of the
map data. That makes it easy to select information from the data with
SQL whereas in MapInfo, if you want all the blue objects for example,
you can't use SQL. But I must admit, there are times when MapInfo's
model is just so much simpler to implement and sometimes a map *is* just
a drawing with some data attached and you don't need to do anything with
topology.
My point is that I don't think MapInfo needs to be more "GISey" as much
as they should pay attention to what their core market and focus is (or
was.) It was business information analysis and presentation of spatial
data. That means not only do they need good analysis tools (and data)
but they really need to sex up their graphics presentation capability.
They aren't aimed at doing modelling or network analysis so they don't
*need* topology. But they do need better graphic tools so that the
software's output can blow the collective socks off an audience.
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