Pitney Bowes MapXtreme - Manual (Page 312)

Chapter 17: Working with Rasters and Grids
Overview of the MapInfo.Raster Namespace
MapXtreme v7.1 319 Developer Guide
Overview of the MapInfo.Raster Namespace
The MapInfo.Raster namespace exposes the full functionality of Pitney Bowes Software’s C/C++
Raster and Grid Engine APIs. Raster images are bitmaps that provide useful background and
reference layers to maps. Grid images are a type of theme that shows a continuous gradation of
color across the image. The gradation represents an interpretation of the underlying data. Grid
images are rasters that have data associated with them. A common example is an elevation map.
Rasters do not have any underlying data.
Raster Images
Raster images make excellent backgrounds for maps. For example, aerial photographs that show
real-world detail such as buildings, refineries, and vegetation are well-suited as base layers for a
map. Scanned paper maps are another example of a raster image. Use a raster image as a base
layer and overlay vector data such as street networks, point locations representing customers, and
postal boundaries, to create useful and visually appealing maps.
Raster images used with vector data must be registered so that known geographic points on the
image coincide with the same features on the vector data. Additionally, company logos and other art
you wish to display in MapXtreme must be registered to some location on earth, even though they
are not true geo-referenced data. Many raster images available today come with a registration file.
Examples include GeoTIFF, ADRG, ASRP, CADRG, and CIB. To register a raster image, you can
bring it into MapInfo Professional and register it there. The registration information is stored in a
.TAB file.