MapInfo Professional 5.0 -- New features
"Borderless thematic colors" - Starting with point values, you can create thematic maps with continuously interpolated shades of color. Your thematic colors, like the real world will not abruptly change at the edge of a census tract or zip code area, for example. This is an integrated feature, with an extensible API (applications programming interface), not an "add-on". It will likely launch a whole new family of grid-based features.
More complete report writer: MapInfo 5.0 drops the report writer included with Rev. 4.5 in favor of the more feature-rich and widely-used report writer: Seagate's Crystal Reports. This is the same report technology that is integrated with Visual Basic and other industry-standard products.
Automatic Cartographic legends: MapInfo has always made legends for thematic maps. Now you can simply build legends for other layers.
Improved Universal Translator: New support for AutoCAD Rev. 14 (DWG/DXF) as well as for Bentley/Intergraph's DGN with MSLinks.
Improved ODBC: With the new dynamic ODBC, MapInfo functions in true client-server fashion. No more large temporary files are required on your workstation; only the data you need is delivered over your network connection.
Free & Useful Downloads. Tailor them to taste and
use them:
Keep your MapInfo Pro software current. Click here to get SGSI's boilerplate memo to ask for approval to buy the
"Upgrade Protection" plan ($395/one year or $695/two years).
With "Upgrade Protection", available only when you buy a new copy or an Upgrade,
you automatically receive all upgrades, both major and minor).
Need a one-time upgrade? Click
here to get SGSI's boilerplate memo requesting permission to upgrade to MapInfo 5.0
(one-time upgrade only).
Upgrading from earlier versions of MapInfo or a competing product? Below are key new features introduced in other recent releases.
MapInfo Professional 4.5 -- New features
New InfoTips - Display a pop-up label in a
ToolTip-like bubble when the cursor hovers over an point, line or other object. For
example, hover the Select Tool over the city of Paris to show the city's population in a
pop-up box.
New Intersection Styles and Better line width control: Create
intersections on your maps that really LOOK like intersections and specify Line Widths in
measured units, not just in "pixels". MUCH easier to determine what your printed
maps will look like.
Higher Node Limit: The maximum # of nodes has been hugely increased. Was
32,000, now 1,048,572 nodes per polyline and region.
New Report Writer: Present your data tables in a formatted columnar report,
including headers and footers. Data records in the report can be sorted and grouped.
Numeric fields subtotaled and grand totaled.
Save Queries (at last!): Save your carefully specified query from session to
session. Queries can be saved in workspaces, too.
New StatusBar Popups: Use the new StatusBar popup menu to, for example,
quickly change which layer is editable. You can use this new feature also to change the
information that displays in the StatusBar, e.g., Zoom level, co-ordinate information and
cursor position.
New Thematic Templates: Create, save, and re-use the color schemes you like
best.
New Tool Manager: MapInfo has long included various MapBasic programs to
make your mapping work easier (ScaleBar, Labeler, etc). Now these handy tools are
available from the MapInfo Tools menu.
New Universal Translator: Translate to and from MapInfo TAB/MIF/MID file and
AutoCAD DXF/DWG, Intergraph DGN, ESRI Shape files, and ESRI *.E00. Note that support for
native AutoCAD DWG, Intergraph DGN is new. Note that you can now translate To Shape
format, not just From it.
MapInfo Professional 4.1 -- New features
Support for native MS Access data: No need to export your Access files to DBF. No need to use ODBC connections. MapInfo 4.1 can read and write to Access files in their native format. This is another first for MapInfo: no other GIS software can do this.
Save maps & layouts in more graphics formats: Save your windows directly into Adobe PhotoShope Rev 3 format to add the polish that only graphics software can provide. You can also save these windows in TIFF, JPEG, PNG (portable network graphics), WMF, and BMP format. Use these features, too, to make graphics for your web site.
Improved control of labels and text: Use the labeler.mbx, incl. with 4.1, to convert the dynamic (and sometimes squirrelly) labels into static, editable text in a permanent map layer. Use this feature to make text-only map layers that can be re-used in different workspaces.