Hi Pete, I can see where you're headed. Keeping your core spatial data vendor-neutral is a good idea in my books. Maximises your opportunities for interoperability at the data level.
However, per-object symbology is one of MapInfo's understated strengths, IMHO. Beats having to deal with separate thematic layers, etc. So I'd recommend that this is one case where you should accommodate some vendor-specific support in order to leverage MapInfo's strength. And the beauty of Oracle Spatial is that you can have both! Consider the following: 1. Create your core spatial data as a vendor-neutral table (making sure to include a single numeric field primary key, etc, etc - all pretty standard requirements for most GIS's) 2. Create another table - a lookup table, really - with columns (e.g.) "PARK_TYPE" and "MI_SYMBOLOGY" 3. Create a view which joins your core spatial table with your lookup table, including the MI_SYMBOLOGY field. This will be your MapInfo vendor-specific (value-added) view of your core spatial data. 4. Create suitable entries in the SDO_GEOM_METADATA table and MAPINFO_MAPCATALOG table for your view to be accessible in MapInfo 5. Voila! If you want to get really tricky, you can build yourself an "INSTEAD OF" trigger on your MapInfo-specific view such that, from a MapInfo user perspective, it "behaves itself". This trigger could, for example, allow insert, update, delete, etc on the data in your core data table, without upsetting your lookup-table of symbologies. If a user changes the style of an object and commits it to the database, the changes could be ignored and symbology revert to the lookup-table value. Endless possibilities, really - including selective security (different roles, different tables, etc.) Happily, it really does depend entirely on what your business requires! Cheers, David Jerrard Quoting Pete Smyth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > G'day all listers > > We are starting to load our data into oracle spatial without the > symbology column that mapinfo can load using easyloader to make it non > vendor specific. > > My question to you all is : > > Can I put some ??? code in the .tab file created when connecting to the > oracle data to allow us to symbolise the data by an attribute. (eg. > field name PARK_TYPE, i want to make SPORT parks red and ORNAMENTAL > parks green) > > Thanks in advance > > Pete > > _________________________________________________________ > > Pete Smyth > Team Leader - Natural Environment and Sustainability Team > Spatial Information Services > Capability Development Branch > iDivision > Brisbane City Council > Tel: +61 7 340 34345 > Fax: +61 7 340 39072 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > www.ourbrisbane.com.au > _________________________________________________________ > > > > ********************************************************************** > This message has passed through an insecure network. > Please direct all enquiries to the message author. > ********************************************************************** > > _______________________________________________ MapInfo-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.directionsmag.com/mailman/listinfo/mapinfo-l
