Intro to Mapinfo

Geog 578 Exercise 1: Introduction to MapInfo Page: 1/22

Geog 578: GIS Applications

Exercise 1: Introduction to MapInfo

Assigned on January 25th, 2006

Due on February 1st, 2006

Total Points: 10

0. Convention Used:

File -> Open : click the File menu and select the Open menu item.

directory\subdirctory : italic specifies the directory path or the filename.

Bold face alone : button labels or window titles.

1. Overview:

This exercise helps you to understand the basics of manipulating spatial data in MapInfo. At the end

of this exercise, you will produce a map showing the 1991 population of Canada by province, a bar

graph comparing the population changes between the provinces, and a list of provinces whose

population changes are greater than 10% of the population in 1981. You will then put these items

(map, graph, list) onto one page as a report (Figure 1.1).

2. Basics of MapInfo:

MapInfo is a desktop spatial data analysis and visualization package. Locations and attributes of

spatial entities are stored in a file (database), called a table in MapInfo. A user can visualize the data

in a table in three different ways (Figure 1.2): Mapper, Browser and Grapher.

Mapper (the map window) presents information arranged as conventional maps, allowing you to visualize the geographic patterns of your data.

Browser (the browser window) presents information as tabular lists (just as conventional databases do), allowing you to examine tabular data fully.

Grapher (the graph window) presents information arranged as graphs or charts, allowing you to visualize the purely numerical patterns.

Any changes in one viewer will be reflected in other viewers (the Hot Views Technology). MapInfo

also provides users with a Layout utility for you to organize your data in the three viewers for

presentation. Most of the spatial data analysis operations in MapInfo are done via SQL Select...

from the Query menu.

3. Viewing Data in Mapper:

3.1 Display the Map of Canada:


1) When you start MapInfo, a Quick Start Dialog Box pops up. Select Open Table from the list of options in this box and then click Open. You should then see the Open Table dialog Box. Navigate to the class data folder or you can copy the data from class folder to your own storage and navigate to the folder that holds your data. You should now see canada.tab in the list at the left.

Figure 1.1: Population of Canada


Figure 1.2: The Three Ways of Data Visualization in MapInfo

2) Select canada.tab. You should see now that the File Name box contains canada.tab.

3) The list underneath Preferred View allows us to set the view for displaying the data. For now, we

just leave the selection as “automatic”.


4) Click Open. The map of Canada displays (Figure 1.3).

Figure 3.3: The Map of Canada

5) Use the zoom icon ( ) to change the Zoom (window width). 4550 will be a reasonable value

allowing you to see the whole country.

3.2 Using the Mapper control center (Map->Layer Control):

A Mapper typically contains two layers (a cosmetic layer and a data layer). The cosmetic layer

contains the labels, text, and other temporarily added objects. The information in the cosmetic layer

will be lost after you quit from the Mapper. However, you can save the contents in the cosmetic

layer into a table using Save Cosmetic Objects... from the Map menu. We will learn how to use this

function in other labs later in this workshop. More than one data layer can be displayed in a Mapper.

The settings of the displayed layers (including the cosmetic layer) are controlled by Layer Control

from the Map menu.

Select Layer Control from the Map menu (Map->Layer Control), a Layer Control dialog window

shows up as shown in Figure 1.4. Since we only loaded one layer (canada.tab) into the Mapper,

there are only two layers in the Layer Control window: cosmetic layer and CANADA. We will be

using the Layer Control to change the display labels for the map of Canada. For now, simply click

the Cancel button to return to normal.


Figure 1.4: The Layer Control Window (Map->Layer Control)

3.3 Using the MapInfo Tools:

MapInfo has a set of tools collected under the Main and Drawing palettes (Figure 1.5). The shaded

boxes show that the tools are not available under the current situation. The box with the light grey

background and black foreground means that the tool is currently selected. To change the tool

selection, simply move the mouse pointer to the desired tool box and click the leftmost button on the

mouse.

Figure 1.5: The Tools Palette


Move a map image: Select the Grabber tool ( ) and move the cursor into the map window, a

hand cursor appears. Click and hold down the leftmost mouse button and drag the mouse. The map

moves in the direction that you drag.

Zoom in and out: Select the Zoom-in ( ) or Zoom-out ( ) tool and click the location on the

map at which to zoom-in (zoom-out). (You also zoom in and out on a map by changing the value in

the Change View box ( )). You can also use the click and drag technique to zoom in on a specific

area.

Get information about a feature: Select the Info Tool ( ) from the Main palette and then click

any region about which you would like to get some data. An Info Tool window containing the

information in the database will pop up. Now select the Info Tool and click anywhere in Ontario on

the Canada map. A window shown in Figure 1.6 should pop up. You can scroll down in the window

to see other parts of the data.

Figure 1.6: Information Window

Add or remove labels: To label the provinces, you select Layer Control from the Map menu.

Highlight CANADA data layer in the Layer Control window and click Label. Check the circle

beside Arrow in the Styles section of the CANADA Label Options window. Click Ok to save the

changes and to close the CANADA Label Options window and click Ok again to dismiss the Layer

Control window. Select the Label Tool ( ) from the Main palette. Move the cursor (it becomes

a small plus sign) to Province British Columbia and click anywhere in B.C. A label, “British

Columbia” appears. Click the Select Tool ( ) from the Main palette. Click on the label “British

Columbia” and hold down the mouse button and drag the label outside of the province and then

release the button. You should see an arrow pointing to Province British Columbia from the label

(Figure 1.7). If you do not see the arrow, drag the label a bit further away from the province.


Figure 1.7: Labeling Province British Columbia

To change the character attributes of the label, double-click the label. You will see a window called

Label Style. Click the font box ( ) underneath Font:. A Text Style window pops up. Check if

the Size in the Text Style window is 8. If not, click the list bar ( ) to set the size to 8. Click Ok to

save the changes and to close the Text Style window. Click the Ok on the Label Style window to

save the changes and to close the Label Style window. To remove a label, select the Select Tool,

click the label to be removed and select Clear from the Edit menu (Edit->Clear). Now create a

couple of labels and then remove them. To remove all labels, use Map->Clear Custom Labels.

Now you know how to add and remove labels, label the province and territories of Canada as shown

in Figure 1.8.

Figure 1.8: Labeled Map of Canada


Add or remove text strings: Since the cosmetic layer is for holding the text strings and drawings, it

is always a good idea to make the cosmetic layer editable. To do so, you select Layer Control from

the Map menu. Highlight cosmetic layer in the Layer Control window. Check the box underneath

the pen symbol and then click Ok to dismiss the Layer Control window. To add a text string onto

a map, select the Text Tool ( ) from the Drawing palette, click on the map and type the text. To

remove a text string, select the Select Tool, click the text to be removed and select Clear from the

Edit menu (Edit->Clear). Now create a couple of text strings and then remove them. To remove

text strings, use Map->Clear Cosmetic Layer. Now you know how to add and remove text strings,

add some annotation strings to the map. It is important to know that the text strings you have added

are temporarily stored in the cometic layer which will be lost once you quit MapInfo or close the

mapper window. If you want to save the editings (the contents in the cosmetic layer) into a database,

select Save Cosmetic Objects ... from the Map menu and the Save Cosmetic Objects dialog

window pops up. Select New... for Transfer cosmetic objects to layer: and a Save Objects to

Table dialog opens up. Type in can_txt.tab in the File Name box, and click the Save button. Notice

the change in the title bar from CANADA Map to CAN_TXT, CANADA Map. This change

indicates that the Mapper now contains the contents of two tables (databases): can_txt.tab and

canada.tab. Although these two databases are in the same Mapper, they are not physically linked.

In some other labs we will learn how to add a database into an existing Mapper and join the

databases together. For now, there are just two Mapper views (one about can_txt.tab and the other

about canada.tab). Use Map->Layer Control to see the order of these Mapper views (layers). The

Cosmetic Layer is always on the top of the stack. CAN_TXT is the second and CANADA is at the

bottom of the stack. The layers are not transparent so the order is very important. Now select

CANADA and click the Up button. CANADA has moved above CAN_TXT. Click the Ok button

and observe the changes in the Mapper. You may not be able to see any of the text strings since they

are obscured by the Provinces. This is because all of the text annotations you added earlier are on

CAN_TXT while the Provinces are on CANADA. Use Map->Layer Control to move CANADA

down and click the Ok button. This should return you to the previous ordering of the layers.

Saving the Workspace: Sometimes, you want to quit for a while and come back to continue

whatever you were doing. You can save the status of your work (workspace) into a file. To save a

workspace, select Save Workspace... from the File menu. Now save your current workspace (File-

>Save Workspace... , enter lab01.wor as the file name, and then click the Ok button) and quit

MapInfo (File->Exit). Start MapInfo again and restore the work you were doing by loading

lab01.wor. To load a workspace, File->Open Workspace... and select the name of the workspace

file. You should be able to get most of your work back.

3.4 Shading the provinces:

We have learned how to display a map, how to label the map, how to use the basic MapInfo tools. In

this section, you will learn how to shade the provinces using 1991 provincial population. Select

Create Thematic Map ... from the Map menu. A window (Create Thematic Map--Step 1 of 3) as

shown in Figure 1.9 pops up. Pick the Type of thematic map, in this case Ranges; also pick the

Template, in this case Region Ranges, Solid Purpleso, Dark-Light. Click the Next> button to bring


up the next step as shown in Figure 1.10. Make sure that the Table is set to CANADA and the Field

is set to Pop_1991. Use the list bar ( ) to select these.

Figure 1.9: Creating a Thematic Map

Figure 1.10: Creating a Thematic Map


Click the Next> button to move to the final step. You see the third step of Create A Thematic Map

pop up with a Customize Ranges button (similar to Figure 1.11). Click the Ranges button. The

Number of ranges is defaulted to 5, but you can change the number of ranges to whatever value you

want. For this demonstration, we just use the default value (5). Now we want to customize our

colors for the map. Since we want to be boring, we are going to change our colors to a greyscale.

Click Ok to go back to Step 3 of creating the thematic map. Now click the Styles button. A window

like Figure 1.12 pops up. You will see in the styles box an individual polygon for each of the

number of ranges that you have defined. You can change the individual color of a range or the base

color of all ranges. To change the color of an individual range you must first click the button beside

None in the Auto Spread box. However, we want to change the shades of all the ranges, so leave

the Auto Spread selected on Color. Then you must click on the top polygon from the list. A

Region Style window pops up where you can change the fill color of the ranges (Figure 1.13).

Clicking the box next to Foreground in the Fill box will present a color palette from which you can

choose an appropriate color. Click Ok and you can see that you have changed the color of the

polygons in the Customize Range Styles menu.

Figure 1.11: Customize Ranges Window


Figure 1.12: Styles window

Figure 1.13: Region Style Window


Once you have selected the correct shades, click the Ok button on the Customize Range Styles

window and click the Ok button of the Create Thematic Map - Step 3 of 3 window, now you see a

gray scale map of Canada showing the population distribution by province. You also see a little

window labeled as Legend. You may want to resize the Legend window so that you can see all of

the legends. Now your MapInfo window should look similar to Figure 1.14. You may want to save

the Workspace before you move on.

Now we have learned the basics how to use the Mapper to display map and annotate the map. There

is a lot more you can do in Mapper. You are encouraged to explore the potential in Mapper some

other time. We now have to turn our attention to the Browser.

4. Viewing Data in Browser:

Browser is for viewing the data in a tabular form. You can open a Browser by Window->New

Browser Window. Now let’s open canada.tab into a Browser this way. Pick CANADA from the

Browse Table list and click Ok. You see a table as in Figure 1.15 opened up. You can move this

table so you can still see your map. Now you are viewing the database in a tabular form. Now click

the record for Alberta in the Browser, you see Province Alberta on the population map in the Mapper

is also selected. Whenever you select or change something in one view, the information in the other

view also changes. This is what they call the Hot Views technology.

Figure 1.14: Contents in Mapper After Shading the Provinces


Figure 1.15: Browsing Database CANADA.TAB

5. Calculating Population Change (Analytical Functions):

So far, we have seen Mapper and Browser in action. The logical way to see the Grapher is by using

it. However, it might be better for us to calculate some new data for Grapher to display. In this

section, we will focus on some of the analytical functions, in particular SQL Select, which seems to

handle most of the MapInfo analytical operations.

We want to express population change between 1981 and 1991 as a percentage of the 1981

population for each province. We can calculate the change based on the following equation:

Change = (Pop_1991 - Pop_1981) / Pop_1981

We also want to create a new database to contain both this information and the information in the

original database (canada.tab) so that we will not change the contents of the original database (we

could if we want to). In other words, we have two tasks here: to calculate the change and to create

the new database. We can accomplish both tasks using the SQL Select... from the Query menu.

After you select SQL Select..., an SQL Select window similar to the one in Figure 1.16 will pop up.

Selection columns: lists the columns to be included in the output (new) database. The ‘*’

means everything from the input (original) databases.

from tables: lists the databases (tables) to be used as input databases.

where condition: specifies what records (rows) from the input databases are included in the

output database.

group by columns: groups the rows in the output table so that all rows with the same values

for the specified columns are grouped together.


Figure 1.16: The SQL Select Window

order by columns: specifies the order in which MapInfo lists the records (rows) in the

output table.

into table named: specifies the name of the output table (database).

The right hand part of the figure contains five lists. Each of them contains a list icon ( ) and is

labeled as Tables, Columns, Operators, Aggregates, and Functions, respectively. These are the

list boxes from which you can select tables, columns, functions, operators, etc. Now select table

CANADA from the Tables list box. Get rid of the ‘*’ in the Selection columns box and select

Province, Pop_1981, Pop_1991, and Capital from the Columns list box. You should note that the

commas between the names of these columns serve as separators of columns. Type a comma after

column Capital and type in (Pop_1991 - Pop_1981) / Pop_1981 “Change”. There is no comma

between (Pop_1991 - Pop_1981) / Pop_1981 “Change”. (Pop_1991 - Pop_1981) / Pop_1981 tells

MapInfo to create a new column using this formula. “Change” tells MapInfo to label the newly

created columns as “Change”. Enter P_change in the into table named:. Now your SQL Select

window should look like the one in Figure 1.17.


Figure 1.17: The Filled SQL Select Window

Now click the Ok button, you should see a table like the one shown in Figure 1.18. Your table may

not look exactly like the one in Figure 1.18 since some of the columns scrolled off the table. Use the

horizontal scroll bar to see these scrolled off columns. You might also want to resize the width of

each column by dragging the vertical bar ( | ) between the column titles so that you can fit all of the

columns into the current window (P_change Browser). You now have three major windows

(CAN_TXT, CANADA Mapper, CANADA Browser, and P_change Browser). You do not need

CANADA Browser anymore, you should close it and leave some space for other stuff. Since there

are so many windows, it is difficult to figure out which window is active. Normally, the window

with a dark-blue title bar is the one active. To make a window active, click the title bar of the

window. Now make the window containing the CANADA Browser active and close it.

All newly created tables are temporary and they will be lost when we exit from MapInfo. If you

want to keep the new table, you must save the table onto a disk. Now let’s save the newly created

table (P_change) onto the disk. Select Save Copy As... from the File menu, select P_change for

saving and click the Save As button in the Save Copy As window, and click Save in the Save Copy

of Table As Window. You may also want to save the Workspace now.


Figure 1.18: The P_change Browser Window

We now have the population change information. We want to create another new table which only

contains the province whose population increased 10% or more. We again use SQL Select (Query-

>SQL Select) to perform the task. The Select columns field contains Province, Capital, Change.

The from tables field should only have P_change and the output table name should be P10. The

where condition field should contain Change > 0.10, which will find all of the provinces whose

population have increased by 10%. Click the Ok button and the P10 Browser will pop up and

contain the information as shown in Figure 1.19. Let’s also save the P10 table permanently (you

should know how to save the table by now).

Figure 1.19: The P10 Browser Window


6. Viewing the Population Change in a Bar Graph (Using Grapher):

Now we have the information on the population change for each province. We would like to

compare the changes among the provinces. Grapher is very suitable for this type of task. Select New

Graph Window... from the Window menu. A window (Create Graph--Step 1 of 2) pops up. Pick

Bar as Graph and Clustered as Template. In the next step (Create Graph--Step 2 of 2), Select

P_change for table, and select Change from Fields from Table, then add Change to Fields for

Graph. Be sure that Label with Column is set to Province and Seies in Column is selected, then

click Ok.

A window called P_CHANGE Graph pops up. The graph looks ugly. But you can change the

outlook later. The final graph should look like Figure 1.20.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%20%

Alberta

British Columbia

Manitoba

New Brunswick

Newfoundland

Northwest Territories

Nova Scotia

Ontario

Prince Edward Island

Quebec

Saskatchewan

Yukon TerritoryP

rovince

(Pop_1991 - Pop_1981) / Pop_1981

Population Change

Figure 1.20: The Population Change Bar Graph

We now want to change the outlook of the bar graph. You may have seen that a menu, Graph,

appeared on the menu bar. You can change the outlook of a graph using the tools in this menu. First,

let’s change the default cubic bar to rectangular bar. Select General Options from Graph menu. A

General Options… window pops up. There is an array of buttons on the top of the window. Click

the first one General, then uncheck Use Depth, set Overlap to 0, set Gap Width to 15, and Riser

Shape to Rectangle. In the same window, click Display Status, be sure that Major Grid, Minor

Grid, Legend and Data Labels are all unchecked, but have Category Axis and Value Axis (Y1)

checked.


Next, let’s change the axis. Select Grids & Scales from Graph menu. A Numeric Axis Grids &

Scales window pops up. You can change both Category Axis and Y1 Axis. Click Category Axis at

the left, then click Grids on the top, click Major Gridlines, have Show Gridlines selected and set

Grid Style to Outer Ticks. To change Y1 Axis, Click Y1 Axis at the left, then click Grids on the top,

click Major Gridlines, have Show Gridlines selected and set Grid Style to Outer Ticks. Then click

Use Manual Grid, and set Interval Value to 0.05 (default is 0.04). If you click Numbers on the top

of Numeric Axis Grids & Scales window, you can change the display of Y1 Axis (data label). Set

Category to Number and Decimal Places to 2. The graph now should look similar to Figure 1.20.

However, I found 0.05 is missed in my data labels. Let me know if you have any luck to fix this

problem. If not, set Category to Percent. Although the labels look funny with the percent sign

shown on the graph, at least no label is missing now.

Next, let’s change the title. Select Titles from Graph menu. A Titles window pops up. Uncheck

Subtitle and Footnote as you do not need them. Then change the Category Title to Province, Value

Title (Y1) to (Pop_1991 – Pop_1981) / Pop_1981, and title to Population Change.

You graph should be pretty much done now. If you don’t want the rectangular outline, double click

the graph, a Formatting window pops up. Click Line, and set Color to White. You may need to

resize the graph, change bar color, and change font size to make your graph looks better.

7. Putting Together A Report (using Layout):

We now have the 1991 population map (CAN_TXT, CANADA Map), a bar graph showing the

population changes, and a table listing the provinces whose population have increased by 10% from

1981. We are ready to put together the report set out at the beginning of this lab. We use the Layout

utility of MapInfo to accomplish this task.

We will use the portrait orientation for the report. Let’s first set the page orientation to portrait using

File->Page Setup... Now, let’s use Window->New Layout Window... to create a layout window.

You should see a window called New Layout Window appearing on the screen. You should notice

that the One frame for window is selected and the box to the right contains P_change Graph. This

means that the layout starts with one frame containing the contents of the P-change Graph Grapher.

Let’s use the contents in the CAN_TXT, CANADA Mapper by selecting it from the list and clicking

Ok. A Layout window (Figure 1.21) appears on the screen. You should also see the Layout menu

on the menu bar. Layout->Change Zoom to set the zoom to 30. You may want to resize the

Layout window a bit so that you can see the whole page in the Layout window.


Figure 1.21: The Layout Window

The Legend for the CAN_TXT,CANADA map (population map here on) is also included in the

layout since it is part of the map. Click the Select Tool in the Main palette if it is not selected, and

then click on the population map in the layout, you should see a dark dot appear on each of the four

corners of the map. These are the handles for you to resize the population map in the layout. You

must click and hold on one of the dots for a couple of seconds and then you can resize the map using

the dotted box that appears. You can move the population map by clicking on the map and dragging

it to a new location. You can manipulate the legend in the same way. Re-arrange the contents in the

layout so that the layout looks like the one in Figure 1.22. You may not be able to fit the legend into

the area shown in Figure 1.22. What you can do is to move the label “British Columbia” down and

right to leave some more space for the legend box. This means that you have to edit the population

map in the CAN_TXT,CANADA Mapper.


Figure 1.22: Position of Population Map In Layout

The second item we want to include in the report is the bar graph. Select the Frame Tool ( )

from the Drawing palette. Move the cursor over to the layout window. Click on an empty section of

the window, hold down the mouse button (the left one) and drag the cursor diagonally to create a

box. When you release the mouse button, MapInfo prompts you with a Frame Object dialog

window. Select P_CHANGE Graph for Window, leave the other areas intact, and click Ok. You

should see that the graph has been loaded into the Layout. Select the Select Tool if you want to

move the graph around. Use the same method to load the contents in the P10 Browser into the

Layout. The layout should look like the one in Figure 1.23 after you include the P10 Browser.


Figure 1.23: Layout with All Three Parts

Now add a title to the report. Select the Text Tool from the Drawing palette and move the cursor to

the location where you want to put the title. Click the left mouse button and type in the title. You

may want to add some other annotation onto the report. Feel free to do so.

8. Printing the Report:

Now you have finished the report and it is time to make a hardcopy of it. First, make the layout

window active, then select Print... from the File menu. A print dialog window pops up. Make sure

the appropriate printer is selected (if not, File->Printer Setup... to set it up). The Copies box in the

dialog window should have a 1 in there since you only need to print one copy. Now click Ok and

patiently wait, or take a walk, get a cup of coffee (drink it outside) but no smoking, and no

drugs.


9. Questions:

1) Figure 1.17 contains an SQL query on the database. Translate this query into real English so that

a lay-person will be able to understand the query.

2) Explain the three views of MapInfo. Are these different views produced from different

databases?

3) Based on your experience in this exercise, explain what is a table in Mapinfo?

Intro to Mapinfo

Documents

data layer

tabular data

class data folder

map window

map of canada

ways of data visualization

basics of mapinfo

population of canada