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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold/please! no arguing |
| Date: |
08/28/2002 02:26:15 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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> You guys seem to be well informed. Would it be possible for you to discuss
> the functionality of these GIS without arguing? I'm sure there
> are others on
> the list that feel the way I do. I am an ArcView/Info user and have had my
> share of problems with ESRI products, but am interested in MapInfo and
> Manifold as I have no experience with them. I would really
> appreciate it if
> you guys could make some more constructive comments regarding the common
> uses of GIS and in what way these three are superior or inferior without
> making it personal.
> If you have to flame me please send it to me and not the list.
> thank you,
> Steve Robertson
>
Steve,
That's a good idea. I've been whining that a capabilities matrix is a big
job and that someone should do one. OK. Today, I'll sit down and begin a
matrix for Manifold and then publish the URL for it so anyone who wants can
suggest additions or changes or use it as a starting point for matrices for
ArcView or MapInfo.
In the meantime, for those who are interested in purely technical comments
I'll give my best initial summary of the purely technical issues at hand.
If anyone doesn't like that I've responded to Steve's posting, please flame
me directly and not to the list. I'll reply to all flames. If you disagree
with what I've written, please discuss the technical issues in your posting.
I'd particularly be interested in hearing technical critique from folks like
Robert Heitzman, who have used both packages. I've made the following
comparison basing ArcView 8 features on ESRI's published marketing material.
Compared to ArcView 8 (quite a different thing than ArcView 3.x), Manifold
5.00 has weak spots and strong spots:
Weak spots:
- AV8 has better CAD style editing, for example, the ability to draw a line
that is forced to be perpendicular to another feature. Manifold 5.00 has
many CAD editing features but not as extensive a collection as in AV8 (or,
for that matter, as were in Manifold 4.50).
- AV8 has better printout capability. This includes a wide selection of
predefined map templates and the built-in ability to export to PostScript.
[Cartographic capabiities in AV8 are said to be a major improvement over AV
3.x]. Manifold cannot write to PostScript and must rely upon Adobe or
Ghostscript products to do so.
- If you intend to work with raster images for a display background only (as
opposed to actually editing or otherwise manipulating those images), AV8
will do a much better job at displaying large images in a fast way.
- Manifold is limited to projects that are no larger than 2 gigabytes in
size in Windows NT, 2000 and XP and only 1 gigabyte in Windows 95, 98, 98se
and ME. This is the sum of all drawings, images and surfaces in the
project. I don't know what the limit is in ArcView.
- AV8 has a larger collection of predefined symbols and nice highway
shields. Manifold has a smaller collection of symbols but better ability to
use new symbols from fonts and image files.
- AV8 has metadata generation and search tools. Manifold has none.
- AV8 includes Crystal Reports report-writing. Manifold does not include a
report-writer.
- AV8 does not include an address geocoder, but an ESRI US streets geocoder
is an available option. Manifold does not yet sell a US street address
geocoder. However, Manifold does include a spatial geocoder that AV8 does
not have.
Strong spots:
- AV8 has better CAD style editing, but Manifold has better Windows-style
GUI editing commands such as copy and paste between drawings or different
types of things (such as copying a table and pasting it as a surface), or
copying a selection from a drawing and pasting it as a new drawing.
Manifold also allows combinations of points, lines and polygons within the
same drawing.
- Manifold reads many more vector, image and surface formats than AV8,
including TIGER/Line, SDTS and GIS vendor formats (like MapInfo and Atlas
BNA) not supported in AV8. Manifold can write SDTS for Federal compatibiity
(AV8 cannot). See http://www.manifold.net/products/mfd50pro/5_formats.html
for the full list. (watch the line wraps inserted by email in this an other
long URLs).
- Manifold has better interactivity between images, drawings and surfaces as
layers in maps. For example, you can transfer selections between images and
drawings so that selecting a region of pixels in an image can automatically
be used to select any features in a drawing that happen to lie within that
region, or selecting the outline of a country in a drawing can be used to
select the included pixels in a satellite image of the region, thus allowing
"clipping" of images to country boundaries, etc. Selections can be
transferred between drawings as well. AV8 appears to have no equivalent
interactivity.
- Manifold has much stronger spatial analytics
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