Bill,
As you may know, Blue Marble has completely figured out the native TAB file format.
Our TAB Reader (a COM Library) product reads native MapInfo TAB files directly. More
info is at http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products.asp?id=15.
To anyone who wishes to engineer the format, good luck to you and have fun! It took
one of our best engineers several hundred hours to do it, with fairly significant
pain. Our effort was completed with full knowledge of MapInfo. They were very
supportive of the effort (especially when they discovered that the Blue Marble TAB
file specification document was perhaps more comprehensive than theirs) as their
intention was never to support their MFAL solution as a "product". They have referred
many TAB Reader customers directly to us.
At this time, paying customers are not lining up for a TAB create/write tool, most are
looking to support reading the TAB format directly in their applications. Our guess
is that the don't need the complete functionality of a mapping component. Blue Marble
could surely support the create/write of TAB files within our TAB library if we could
justify it. Anyone out there - let us know if your interested.
Jeff
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> I asked once. A few years ago the answer was no. I hear that a
>> licensed DLL kit does exist, but it's not open to the general
>> public, and it comes with a whopper price tag (naturally).
>> However, I don't believe anyone can copyright a data format
>> anyway (or ESRI, MapInfo, AutoDesk, and Integraph would have sued
>> each other to death already), so if you can figure it out you
>> could probably use it without any problems. Good luck figuring it
>> out. Only a few illuminati know how, and they all think the
>> others haven't got it right yet. I have noticed that interest in
>> this format has really increased in the last few months, so I
>> guess the genie is just about out of the bottle anyway.
>> Just out of curiousity, if you could buy it, what would people be
>> willing to pay for a DLL or ActiveX tool that would provide the
>> ability to create and direct read/write access to MapInfo TAB
>> files?
>> - Bill Thoen
>> Neil Havermale wrote:
>> >
>> > There is a better answer to all of this. I would suggest you contact
>> > MapInfo's Developer Services and ask about access to TAB....
>> >
>> > MidNight
>> > 3/16/00
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>> > Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 12:40 PM
>> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> > Subject: Re: MI mif2tab.exe ?
>> >
>> > Mats Elfstr�m <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > "On 01/04/99, the Midnight Mapper asked: Anyone out there interested in
>> > building a shareware MIF2TAB.exe?"
>> >
>> > And Mats replied:
>> > Well, I just discovered that someone has.
>> > Visit http://pages.infinit.net/danmo/e00/index-mitab.html for downloads
>> and
>> >
>> > more information. I cannot vouch for the functionality of this stuff,
>> but
>> > it
>> > passed a simple back and forth conversion test.
>> > ## end of quoted material ##
>> >
>> > I downloaded the material Mats discovered and recompiled it to produce a
>> > Windows DLL using Borland C++ Builder 4. (I just can't stand having to
>> work
>> > in a DOS command line!) Here is my "take" on the software:
>> >
>> > 1. The code is a very good start, but it is unfinished in several
>> respects.
>> > For example, the functions it provides are "read/create" rather than
>> > "read/write." Thus you can create a TAB file from a MIF/MID, but you
>> can't
>> > open a TAB and add new objects to it. You (apparently) have to convert
>> the
>> > TAB to a MIF/MID using the Tab2Mif, delete and/or add updated objects
>> (in
>> > MIF/MID format), then create the updated TAB using Mif2Tab.
>> >
>> > 2. The software (apparently) doesn't do any "intelligent" grouping of
>> > objects. Thus the objects appearing together in an object block (a type
>> 2
>> > record) are not contained in some minimal bounding rectangle (as they
>> are in
>> >
>> > a TAB built by MapInfo itself).
>> >
>> > 3. The conversion from external floating point coordinates to internal
>> > integer format is based on the minimum bounding rectangle of the
>> contained
>> > data rather than limits that allow arbitrary coordinates anywhere on the
>> > ellipsoid. Thus, if you use MapInfo to update a TAB created by MITAB you
>> > will
>> > find that no data can be added outside the bounding rectangle of the
>> > original
>> > data. (Fortunately, fixing this problem in MITAB is rather simple.)
>> >
>> > However, given these reservations, I believe this is an excellent start
>> > toward an "open" set of software for working with data in Mapinfo
>> "native"
>> > format. And, of course, just having a Mif2Tab and Tab2Mif capability
>> (albeit
>> >
>> > experimental) is a big step forward in itself.
>> >
>> > Robert Edwards
>> > The MapTools Company
>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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