Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional - Manual (Page 165)

2. Creating a Map Catalog in the DBMS to Work with Data
Your database administrator may need to grant you specific access privileges to the database to
work with the data. The following section gives details:
• Before you Begin Creating a Map Catalog Table .
3. Adding a Spatial Primary Key to a DBMS Table
To view your data on a map in MapInfo Professional it must contain geometry data (polygon regions)
or X and Y data (coordinates, such as Latitude and Longitude values). This is what displays on the
map as regions or points. The geometry column or X and Y columns must have specific names for
MapInfo Professional to recognize them, and the table requires a unique spatial primary key for
MapInfo Professional to reference the data on a map.
4. Making a DBMS Table Mappable to Display it on a Map
Access your Data
After setting up your database connection, you are ready to work with your data in MapInfo Professional,
see
Opening a DBMS Table in MapInfo Professional .
For details, see:
• Working with SQL Server Tables
• Working with PostGIS Tables
• Working with Oracle Spatial Tables
If your data includes spatial data, which can be columns holding X and Y values, such as
Latitude/Longitude, or a column holding sptial data in the format specified by the database system. With
no spatial information, you can work with your data in a table browser (a Browser window) in MapInfo
Professional.
If your data does not include coordinate information, then consider geocoding, adding the coordinate
information, using a Pitney Bowes Software product, such as MapMarker or Spectrum.
Requirements
When accessing remote data sources:
• The table you access must have a spatial column or two numeric columns to hold X and Y coordinate
values.
• The view must have a key column named MI_PRINX to make the view mappable.
PostGIS users: MapInfo Professional treats all views in a PostGIS database as read only, because
there is no way to determine if the view can be used for update.
Creating a Data Source Connection
The first step to working with data in a DBMS is setting up a data source connection on your machine
to the DBMS. This is necessary for a DBMS installed on to your machine or on the network. SQL Server
and PostGIS require an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connection and Oracle Spatial requires
an Oracle Call Interface (OCI) connection.
Use an OCI connection to Oracle for spatial data. You can use an ODBC connection to any
ODBC compatible database and to older versions of Oracle with non-spatial data. Note:
You must have the ODBC driver or OCI installed on your machine before creating a data source
connection. MapInfo Professional installs or updates Windows ODBC drivers if they are older than the
165 MapInfo Professional User Guide
Chapter 7: Working with Data in a DBMS