Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional - Manual (Page 302)

2. The second method, Combine Objects Using Column, is used to combine objects into groups based
on a specified column.
3. The third method, Redistricting, is covered in Redistricting-Grouping Map Objects into Districts .
Most frequently, the Combine Regions options are your easiest and quickest options for combining
regions and creating territories.
Combining Selected Objects
When you choose to combine objects, MapInfo Professional performs two operations:
• MapInfo Professional geographically combines the selected objects. The new object represents the
geographical union of the original objects and the border between the regions disappears.
• MapInfo Professional performs data aggregation. As described earlier in this chapter, data aggregation
is a process where MapInfo Professional calculates what the column values for the new object should
be, based on sums or averages of the original objects.
Your setup of the Layer Control window depends on whether you want to copy the result object to another
layer (and, thus, save the original objects) or combine the objects in the original layer (and, thus, lose
the original objects).
If you want to copy the result object, make the region's layer Selectable and another layer Editable.
Specify a target object, then select the objects using any selection method and on the Objects menu,
click Combine. This will display the Data Aggregation dialog box where you tell MapInfo Professional
how to combine the data. Fill in this dialog box and click OK to combine the objects to combine the
objects' data. This method was discussed earlier in this chapter.
If you want to combine objects in the original layer, make sure that the layer is editable, select the objects
in the layer, and on the Objects menu, click Combine. Do not set a target. The Data Aggregation dialog
box displays. After the operation is complete, a new object will be added to the layer, and the original
objects will be deleted.
Combining Objects Using Column
Combine Objects Using Column allows you to modify geographic data to create new map objects that
contain data about the group. This feature is similar to redistricting in that it groups objects together, but
goes beyond redistricting to combine a copy of the relevant objects while leaving the original objects
untouched.
To access Combine Objects Using Column:
1. On the Table menu, click Combine Objects Using Column. For example, you have a layer of states.
You want to combine the state boundaries to create sales territories. The data record associated
with each state looks like this:
AVG_SALES CUSTOMERS STATE SALES_REP
24231.4 1782 West Virginia Benita
33265.0 121 Ohio Benita
• SALES_REP: Sales representative assigned to that state
• CUSTOMERS: Number of customers per state
• AVG_SALES: Average spent per customer
You would like to aggregate the data in the following manner:
• SALES_REP: Combine all records that list Benita as the sales representative
• CUSTOMERS Sum up the number of customers in the sales territory
MapInfo Professional 12.5 302
Creating Territories by Combining Objects