MapPro80.OCX  -  A Pre-Release Summary Introduction

MapPro80 is not simply an upgrade of the older MapPro Mapping Control.  Most of its modules were re-designed from scratch to take advantage of newer operating systems, computers systems with significantly increased resources, newer more versatile development environments, etc.  This document is a brief summary of some of the new features.

• Increased data resolution (accuracy) to the full 6 decimals available in the raw TANA data.  This increases the data size for deployment purposes, but it provides a coherent, stable road network system that does not have some of the limitations older systems had, because of reduced precision.

• A new internal data structure was implemented to allow the developer to deploy datasets for a single or multiple countries, with each client license.  This expanded capability is in preparation for UnderTow’s efforts to secure datasets for multiple countries in Europe, South America, Asia, etc., as the Dynamap® North America dataset from Tele Atlas is being replaced by a different product.  Although this Beta SDK package is shipped with Dynamap® test data for the USA and Canada,, it employs the new data structure that will be used with new data sources, as they become available.

• Totally overhauled Route calculation module. 

  • Much faster calculations and better route selection, based on a more precise road network. Routing options now include avoidance of Toll Roads, Tunnels, Ferries, etc.

  • In addition to the enhancements in the routing calculations, the control now incorporates a full trip planner module, which allows the user to select multiple stop and via points, layover durations, at each via or stop point, trip start time and date, daily start and stop driving times and scheduled breaks, road preferences, speed limits, breakfast, lunch and dinner costs, gas costs, overnight costs, and other trip customizing parameters.

  

  • All these routing features are available to the user from the built-in user interface and are also accessible programmatically. The developer can access individual or consolidated road segments for the calculated route, driving times, average speed, longitude and latitude coordinates of the starting point of each segment, as well as all calculated trip summary results.

  • Currently in development is a modular routing system that will allow the caching of network component connectivity. Without this, the network used for a specific route must be reloaded for each leg even when redundancy/overlap of the route occurs. The end result will be a substantially faster routing system.

• Support for multiple Image (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG) or Vector ( MID/MIF, SHP, TXF) Overlays with user specified transparency and alpha-blending support (on a layer-by-layer basis), and attribute management (pen, brush styles).

  • Min/Max visibility thresholds to allow imported data to phase in/out as desired.

  • Ability to use same CFCC-based, or other field-based paradigm for rendering imported layers.

  • Integration of user-created road segments, (created using the built-in editing capabilities of the OCX to create roads, classify them, name them, etc.) and the ability to query their attributes.

• A companion ActiveX control, distributed as part of the SDK, provides a GPS interface, fully controllable by the developer.  It provides an interface to the general Virtual COM Port connections, used by most USB GPS receivers, and the proprietary USP protocol used by many Garmin devices.  Once the port connection properties have been set, all the user has to do is open the GPS panel and start tracking their position on a moving map.

• The control has been re-designed to be thread-safe, cache all data needed for rendering and isolate the parameters used for the actual rendering which accommodate multiple instances of the OCX, all sharing the same data cache.

• New Printing paradigm. 

• A new multi User layer was implemented for managing user bitmap items, with its own visibility threshold and other attributes (the old SetItem paradigm is still supported and is transparently handled through this new user layer).  Added 32-bit support for user object bitmaps which permits alpha blending, (16-bit and lower user object bitmap are automatically converted to 24-bits, when added to the user layer).   User items can be searched for, highlighted, selected, and used to access other, external attributes, if desired.  Support for user object transparency and shadows.

• Implemented a new class-based processing system for rendering objects which results in a more efficient usage of resources, eliminating resource problems when using the control with large canvas devices (e.g., running out of resources for rendering double-line roads, when rendering very large map images).

• Anti-aliasing text and road rendering and a totally new street labeling intersection-detection method was implemented, that results in significantly cleaner map renderings.

• A Tele-Atlas based points landmarks database is now distributed with the SDK, exactly matching the 6-digit precision of the underlying vector dataset for better placement of the landmarks, relative to the vector map data.

• Additional classification data is now part of the database, and is used for rendering and routing restriction calculations (like tunnel, bridge, toll road  designations, etc.)

• Underlay module revamped

  • Support for BMP, GIF, JPG and PNG Underlays (PNGs are loaded like a JPG and GIF files, i.e., all loaded in memory with the inherent limitations such an approach has, as to the size of the underlay that can be accommodated).

  • Ability to use proprietary format CRA files, which are archives with multiple compressed bitmap files managed by the OCX. A processing tool is also provided to the user to allow them to create such CRA files. In addition to gridding the file for optimum resource usage, the tool creates and embeds sub-sampled forms of the base image to speed up and improve the quality of rendering.

• Drag-and-Drop event handler managed by the developer.  One application of this feature is the ability to associate pictures (BMP,JPG,GIF, PNG) with a certain hot spot location on the map and create a thumbnail of the associated image for identifying the position on the map.  Another use is implementing new underlays, loading of trip files, icon placement, etc.

• The POI interface was expanded to allow searching by partial name, categories and sub-categories.  In addition to that a new, cleaner set of built-in bitmaps is now used for all categories (the developer can  also select their own bitmap markers for one or more categories)

• Data loading and rendering speed was significantly increased.  A new data compression was implemented, with random access.  File streams are now used for all data loading.  This also uses data caching, shared across multi instance OCX's in the same process.

• A new major Highway and State layer for Mexico was built into the coarse OCX data layer, based on department of transportation data.

• Multiple First/Previous/Next/Last Views are now managed programmatically and through the stock toolbar interface.  The views are cached for ultrafast View restorations.

• A new  set of  Save/Load Config functions that allow the developer to save the configuration to an OLE Variant Array or String and don't require output to a file, lend themselves to web server development, as they can be used to provide a "state", for a current user, thus allowing the management of individual user profiles.

• User views can now be saved, managed and restored as needed by the user.

• The basic paradigm has shifted away from the Event-Driven approach which was difficult to use in non-visual applications.  Below is a small sample of the new, List-Object based paradigm.  Each set is made up of four functions.   For example, the FindCity function is made up of FindCityFirst, FindCityNext, FindCityClose and FindCityList ).

  • Off the Main Interface

    • FindCity

    • FindClosest City

    • FindClosestStreet

    • FindItem

    • FindLandMark

    • FindStreet

    • FindZip

    • GeoFind

  • Off the Router Interface

    • GetRoute

    • GetConsRoute

  • Other Specialized Search functions were also introduced, like

    • FindCountryAtPoint

    • FindStateAtPoint

    • FindCountyAtPoint

    • FindMCDAtPoint

    • FindPlaceAtPoint

    • FindZipAtPoint

• A new Restrictions interface allows the user to exclude or bias multiple areas from consideration by the Router, thus being able to eliminate them from a calculated route.  Ideal, for example, for excluding travel through city traffic.  Restrictions can be weighed with factors 0 - 1, for finer control of the route, based on local experience.

• A new Printer interface now allows the developer to control all aspects of printing, programmatically. 

• Revamped Searching Modules

  • Much faster searching operations, using suffix array searching for names.

  • Unified search results by the various search functions, simplifies parsing of returned data.

  • New, Extended searches for User-Defined Objects, Routing ViaPoints, Point of Interest, Landmarks, etc.

• Special attention to additional.NET Considerations, like multiple event sink connections, etc.

• A new MapProperties interface allowing consolidated control of the map attributes, like Street visibility and labeling thresholds, font styles, country and state polygon and boundary colors, minimum and maximum allowable scale levels, etc.

Interfaces Overview