Installation and Configuration
Prerequisites for MapImagery

MapInfo Professional 5.0, 5.5 or later is required. Note that the 32 bit version is required.

Up until (and including) version 6.030 of MapImagery, MapInfo Professional 4.x was supported. After this version it became too difficult to maintain backward compatibility. If you are still using MapInfo 4.x, your best option is to upgrade to one of the 5.x versions of MapInfo. If this is not possible, then you could try and use version 6.030 of MapImagery, however, this version is not being actively maintained.

Windows95, Windows 98, WindowsNT 3.51, WindowsNT 4.0 or later is required.

Note that the link is for PC platforms only. It doesn't work with any of the UNIX versions of MapInfo.

Note also that ER Mapper is no longer a prerequisite for the link. This contrasts with previous versions.

Standard Installation

MapImagery is distributed as a self extracting executable archive. All you need to do is download this file to your PC and execute the file.

Answer the questions that the install program asks you. No further configuration is required, however, you may wish to change some of the optional parameters that control the way that the link operates. This can be done at any time via the menu Options for MapImagery.

 

MapInfo MapX Control Installation

To work with MapInfo MapX based applications, specify the MapInfo MapX\Program directory as the MapInfo directory, when prompted by the InstallSheild program.

It should be possible for MapInfo Professional and MapInfo MapX applications to coexist on the same machine, although you may have to install one time for each application, so that the appropriate raster translators and dll files are present in each of the MapInfo application directories.

To view a MapImagery raster layer in your MapInfo MapX based application, you should first create a .tab file (and associated .alg and .ers files) in MapImagery. You should then be able to load the layer as a standard raster MapInfo table.

Network Drive Installation

Some support has been added for large sites that want to install MapImagery centrally on a network drive, exported to users PCs.

The most important thing to do for network support is to install MapImagery into a parent directory of the MapInfo application directory. This enables the MapImagery system libraries and configuration files to be located automatically when a new user uses MapImagery for the first time.

The program attempts to locate the MapImagery directory by recursively searching sub-directories of parent directories of the currently running MapInfo application. The following search order is used:

..\MapImagery

..\GID\MapImagery

..\Program Files\GID\MapImagery

..\..\MapImagery

..\..\GID\MapImagery

..\..\Program Files\GID\MapImagery

..\..\..\MapImagery

All other registry entries are set to factory defaults, the first time that a user runs MapImagery. Note that these settings may not be optimal for operation of the program.

It should be possible to run MapImagery from a READONLY drive, as the default for the Projection Database Directory has been changed to be the users home directory, rather than the MapInfo directory.

 

Directories Link Options

ER Mapper Directory

This is the directory that ER Mapper is installed. You are prompted for this directory during installation of MapImagery. This option can be changed at any time via this options dialog.

MapInfo Directory

This is the directory that MapInfo is installed. You can use this option to switch between different versions of the MapInfo system software, however, because the MapImagery install program writes some files into the MapInfo directory, you must install the link into each of the MapInfo directories that you intend to switch between.

Projection Database Directory

This is the directory in which a database file ermmi.prj is written. In this file, MapImagery saves away the choice that you make in the Projection dialog, for future use. The next time that you try to load an algorithm with the same ER Mapper projection details, the projection dialog will remember the MapInfo Category, Category Member, and Units that you entered, and fill in these values for you. If you have several users of the link at your site, you may wish to put this file on a central file server, so that people can share the choices that other users have made, matching ER Mapper projection details with MapInfo ones.

 

Color Link Options

 

TrueColor Setting

By default, when MapInfo displays raster imagery on a high color display, the number of colors is reduced down to 256 via dithering. This can result in unnecessary dithering artifacts appearing in the image.

Setting the above option tells MapInfo to process raster images as TrueColor (24bit) images, and to let the window system do any dithering required to display the image on your screen. This can result in much clearer images where your video card supports 16bit or 24 bit color.

Algorithm Generation Link Options

These options control some of the features of the ER Mapper algorithms that are generated when you choose Open Image

 

Default Colormap

This is the colormap that is used when an algorithm is generated to display an ER Mapper image 1 or 2 bands. The default is greyscale, but you can choose any valid ER Mapper colormap that you like.

Autoclip Transform Type

This is the type of autoclip to do on algorithm layers when an algorithm is generated to display an ER Mapper image the present release, the only option is Limits to % Histogram which sets the input limits of a layer to a given percentage of the input histogram. This histogram is calculated by running the algorithm at a low resolution. More information on ER Mapper transforms and histograms can be found in the ER Mapper documentation.

Autoclip Percent

This option is used to vary the percentage used when an autoclip is done to generate an algorithm to display an ER Mapper image

Generate Algorithm In

This is the directory to generate the algorithm in. The default is the same directory as the image choosing Default algorithm directory causes the algorithm to be saved in an alternative directory. This may be useful if your image is on a read only file system.

Default Algorithm Directory

This directory is used as the location for generating algorithms, when the Generate Algorithm In option is set to Default algorithm directory.

 

General Link Options

options4.gif (7493 bytes)

 

Show progress bar during processing

The link normally displays a progress bar at the bottom of the main MapInfo window, when processing an algorithm. This option allows this feature to be disabled.

Show splash dialog on startup

This option allows the MapImagery splash dialog, which appears when MapInfo is started up to be disabled.

When Opening an Algorithm Table

This option controls what happens when you open a new algorithm or image table. The default is to open a new MapInfo mapper. Choose Add to Current Mapper to make the link add the new raster table to the current mapper.

Histogram Style

This option controls the histogram style displayed in the Transform Dialog.   You can choose between Cumulative (the default), Non-Cumulative, and De-Quantised.

Supersampling Link Options

Pixel Supersampling Factor

This factor allows you to control how much to supersample each raster pixel. This is useful for two purposes:

  • To avoid a problem that MapInfo has with printing raster images to hard copy devices. The problem is that MapInfo dithers at raster image resolution, rather than at hardcopy device resolution. Setting the factor to a higher value, tells MapInfo that that raster image resolution is higher, resulting in better dithering on hardcopy devices. Setting the factor too high may result in slower display of raster data and use of more memory.
  • To allow you to control over how smooth ER Mapper vector layers appear. A higher value for this factor results in smoother ER Mapper vectors, but may result in slower display of raster images. A lower value results in vectors with courser features, but may result in faster display of raster images.
  •