Thank you to those who responded to my request for suggestions on this problem.
<I have a *.dbf file that contains thousands of points that represent
"nodes" on contour lines. I need to generate a contour map. If I open
the file in MI and "create points", is there a way to generate lines to
connect the dots? And if I can do that, can I cause the points to
disappear and have them be replaced by nodes? Or am I approaching this
all wrong and need to edit the dbf before opening so that MI recognizes
the data as plines instead of points? Any help with this challenge will
be much appreciated.>
Comments ranged from "too difficult" to "would need to write a Mapbasic routine", etc.
For those interested, the solution was eventually quite simple, and the difficulty (unnecessary) was in the MI online help documentation. Thanks to Cindy Makarowsky, who gave me the correct syntax for the MB command line (below)
"update tablename set OBJ=createline(x1,y1,x2,y2)"
and NOT
"update tablename set OBJ = createline(x1, y1, x2, y2)"
the syntax provided in the online documentation (aren't subtle differences wonderful?).
The remainder of the problem was mechanical. Performed in Excel, took coordinate columns x1,y1 and duplicated them in x2,y2, and then moved the entire x2,y2 columns up one row so that adjacent coordinate points are now in adjoining rows and the "update tablename createline" command connects all the dots.
Produced an almost perfect contour map with a only a minor amount of clean up required.
Richard Duncan
--
BM¢J
