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Mapping on the web using mapinfo products
C. L. Hogan MapInfo Australia Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia Tele: 61-2-9437 6255, Fax: 61-2-9439-1773, chris.hogan@mapinfo.com
Abstract
In recent years GIS and desktop mapping systems have evolved from the domain of the specialist to that of every day users. The evolution of component technology and the world wide web now provides the tools and distribution channel to develop simple applications which can distribute cost effective mapping solutions efficiently to large numbers of end users. This paper examines the evolution of MapInfo web products, their architecture and examples of commercial applications currently in use. Introduction This paper follows the technical evolution of MapInfo products from desktop products which were once used predominantly by GIS specialists to more commercially wide spread web based products. Reasons for using the web as a medium for disseminating mapping are investigated as well as the technical architecture involved in developing a mapping based web site. A number of web sites in Australia are presented as examples of how web based mapping is used in the commercial sector as a means of disseminating information to a wide variety and large number of end users. Technical Evolution MapInfo Corporation was founded in 1986 and quickly established itself as one of the leading suppliers of commercially available GIS software. The first product to be released was MapInfo Professional. This was a desktop product designed to run on a single PC or workstation running on the DOS platform. A level of expertise was required to operate the software and companies usually had one or more employees trained as the in-house specialists. Mapinfo Professional could be customised by using the MapCode development environment which was a C like programming language dedicated for use under DOS. Many clients chose to have their applications customised in this way in order to make MapInfo Professional easy to use and more suited to their particular business. With the advent of Microsoft Windows® MapInfo Professional took on an easier to use graphical user interface (GUI). A new development environment called MapBasic was released which allowed users to take advantage of this GUI and provide users which far easier to use applications. A certain level of expertise was still required to use MapInfo Professional and it still only catered to single user desktop applications. The Windows Operating system also brought with it component technology such as Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). OLE provides a program integration technology which can be used to share information between programs. With OLE MapInfo Professional could be used to develop integrated mapping applications using standard development environments such as Microsoft Visual Basic (VB), Borland Delphi and C++. MapInfo Professional Map Windows could be re-parented or embedded into the development environment such as a VB form. This would allow the developer to utilise map windows in their application to develop easy to use embedded mapping applications which could be deployed to end users with no GIS or desktop mapping skills. Developers could deploy simple to use Executive Information Systems which utilised the MapInfo Professional engine in the background to provide maps to an easy to use front end application. GIS had finally been taken out of the back room and deployed to the main stream users. The introduction of ActiveX technology meant more wide spread deployment of component based applications was possible. ActiveX controls are programming objects which when embedded into a form provide specialised functionality to the application in which they have been embedded. MapInfo has developed an ActiveX control called MapX which is an ActiveX component that can be quickly integrated into client side applications using Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, Delphi, Visual C++ or other object-oriented languages and in Lotus Notes (v4.5) using Lotus Script. Developers can work in the environments they're familiar with, and end users can access mapping through their familiar business applications. It was the development of products based on these ActiveX controls which truly took mapping applications out of the hands of GIS and desktop mapping specialists and placed it in front of business users via every day commercial applications. The next major step in the evolution of MapInfo mapping products came with the emergence of the World Wide Web. The Web gave the opportunity to distribute information to large numbers of people who up until the emergence of the Internet were beyond the reach of many companies. MapInfo responded by releasing it's MapXtreme mapping server software based on it's MapX technology. This gave developers the ability to develop applications which could deliver dynamic mapping functionality across the web. End users did not need to have any knowledge or skill in using mapping solutions. If they can use a Web Browser they can use a web based mapping application. The latest technology from MapInfo is it's Java based Web mapping technology called MapXtreme Java. This product allows developers to stream vector based data down to an applet running in the clients browser. Clients can work within the browser on their client machines and only communicate with the server when a new request for data is made or updates are to be saved.  Figure 1 Why Go To The Web Applications running on a managed server network offer huge economies of scale - lower hardware and administrative costs, while dramatically improving application performance, reliability and security. Companies, who once found mapping cost prohibitive, can now offer it at lower per user costs than ever before. Applications and data can be installed on a central server and accessed from distributed client machines using inexpensive web browsers over either the Internet or Intranet. One of the greatest advantages of deploying mapping applications across the Internet is that they can be easily maintained. If an application has been deployed to large numbers of end users the process of upgrading the application involves simply upgrading the application software and/or data stored on the central server. End Users will be able to instantly utilise the updated application hence avoiding the time and cost involved with updating individual user workstations.  Figure 2 Web deployed applications tend to be far more cost effective as there is no need to install client side software applications. The software is installed at one location on a central server and accessed via inexpensive web browsers. The cost and administration of client side hardware is also made easier as the hardware only needs to be capable of running a web browser, hence expensive workstations are not required as might be the case with applications which sit on the client.
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