MapInfo Driver Category

Current driver status: Import available, export unavailable.

Drag and drop supported?No

Support status: Supported.

To access this driver:

  1. Display the Data Import screen. This screen is displayed when import-loading and when adding a file association to the current project. In all cases, functions are found on the Data ribbon.

  2. Select the MapInfoData Category and an option in the Data Type list.

 

The MapInfo driver is used to import data from MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF)/MID files, and TAB file sets. Export options are not available.

Using Autodetect

Selecting the AutodetectData Type automatically determines whether points or strings need to be created as the result of the import.

If data contains both points and strings, the point data is imported as single point strings. Where import data types need to be restricted, the Points or Strings Data Type option may be used instead.

MapInfo files can contain the following graphical objects:

• point

• line

• polyline

• region

• arc

• text

• rectangle

• rounded rectangle

• ellipse

The TAB File Set

The following files are required to import the TAB file set:

  • .DAT file: stores the attribute data (usually a dBase III DBF file).
  • .TAB file: the ASCII file which is the link between all other files, and holds information about the type of data file.
  • .ID file: stores information linking graphic data to the database information.
  • .MAP: stores the graphic and geographic information needed to display a map on your screen.
  • .IND: optional index files for tabular data (present if any fields are indexed).

The MIF File Set

The following files are required to import the MIF file set:

  • .MIF file: stores the graphics data.
  • .MID file: optional file storing textural data - this is delimited data, one row per record, each row associated with a corresponding object in the MIF file.

Note: The optional files described above, (*.IND, and *.MID) are utilized by the drivers if these optional files are present.

Note: GIS data is generally separated into 2 types: vector data, which consists of points, lines and polygons; and raster data, which consists of regular grids.

GDAL is an open source translator library, developed by the GIS community. It handles a range of raster/grid data, and contains a component called OGR which handles simple vector data.

The MapInfo driver is a specialised version of the OGR drivers library, and supports both raster (pixel or grid based data), and vector (line or point based data).