One-Way Streets Depicted
If I had to rank the best new features in MapPoint 2004,
the depiction of one-way streets would certainly be among the top three.
While MapPoint 2002 was smart enough not to generate a route going the wrong
way down one-way streets, it was not possible to visually see on the map
which streets were one-way without going through the steps of generating
a map. By depicting one-way streets on the map it is much easier to navigate
short distances in areas where there are many one-way streets simply by looking
at the map.
The following screenshots show an area in Manhattan in
MapPoint 2002 and MapPoint 2004.
[See Manhattan]
Better GPS Support
Right up there with one-way streets, another great enhancement
with MapPoint 2004 is the elimination of the 15-second delay when updating
the position from a GPS device. MapPoint now updates the location in real-time (once per
second) making it much easier to navigate while enroute.
Also, Pocket Streets, an ancillary product that ships
with MapPoint (as well as Streets & Trips and AutoRoute), now has GPS capabilities.
More Pushpins
Sixty additional built-in pushpins were added to MapPoint
2004, previously there were 256 built-in pushpins. Both versions have some
15,000 additional slots available for custom pushpins.
As you can see below, additional numbers were added as
well as a number of transparent symbols which allow the background to show
through the edges of the icons. In addition a set of eight colored flags
which are not depicted were also added to MapPoint 2004.
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MapPoint 2002 |
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MapPoint 2004 |
Full Page Map Printing
MapPoint 2004 now offers the ability to stretch the printed map to the edges
of the page rather than limiting the map to the area shown on the screen. This
makes better use of the paper. The option to "Extend view to fit page" appears
in the Print dialog under the Current map view selection.
Two New Methods in MapPoint Object Model
The lack of additional programmatic features is perhaps
the most disappointing thing about MapPoint 2004. While I suspect the MapPoint
team (busy as they are with MapPoint Web Services and developing new products
such as the MapPoint Location Server) simply decided they could not afford
to invest the resources and developer time required to add much to the MapPoint
2004 object model, it could also be noted that this also effectively avoids
additional channel conflicts with the data providers such as the flap with
Navtech and fleet applications encountered with MapPoint 2002. Whatever the
real reason, it is a disappointment to those expecting a major evolutionary
leap forward such as occurred with MapPoint 2002.
ExportForPocketStreets Method
This method is the functional equivalent of the “Export
Map for Pocket Streets” found in the menu under File. For literally years
questions about how to programmatically create a Pocket Streets .mps file
have appeared periodically in MapPoint forums. This is classic
Microsoft behavior in listening to and adapting a product to user requests.
I would imagine this was one of the low-hanging fruit in terms of what functionality
could be easily added to MapPoint.
Here is a description from the Help File and some sample
code in Visual Basic .NET.
ExportForPocketStreets method
Exports the given area as
a file ready for use in PocketStreets. If the object is Map, this
method exports everything in the current view. If the object is SelectedArea,
this method exports everything in the current selection.
[Visual Basic .NET]
Public Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
Dim objApp As MapPoint.Application
Dim WithEvents objMap As MapPoint.Map
Dim objLoc As MapPoint.Location
Private Sub MyForm_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object,
_
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
objApp = CreateObject("MapPoint.Application.NA.11")
'For the European version use: ("MapPoint.Application.EU.11")
objMap = objApp.ActiveMap
objApp.Visible = True
objApp.UserControl = True
Dim Cities() As String =
_
{"San Francico", "Denver", "Chicago", "Boston"}
Dim City As String
For Each City In Cities
objLoc = objMap.FindPlaceResults(City)(1)
objLoc.GoTo()
Try
Kill("c:\" & City & ".mps")
Catch
End Try
objMap.ExportForPocketStreets("c:\" & City & ".mps")
Next
objApp.ActiveMap.Saved = True
objApp.Quit()
objApp = Nothing
End Sub
End Class
LocationFromOSGridReference Method
While it was possible to import locations using an OS
grid reference with MapPoint 2002, the new method allows you to map individual
grid references programmatically without resorting to linking or importing
an external dataset.
A sample set of OS grid references for all the towns in
the UK can be found here. This can be imported into both MapPoint 2002 and
MapPoint 2004.
LocationFromOSGridReference method
Returns a Location object for
a given U.K. Ordnance Survey Grid reference string. Does not change the
map view.
In addition to being able to retrieve location objects
from an OSGB grid reference string, MapPoint 2004 also has the added benefit
of being much more accurate with OSGB coordinates by virtue of having fixed
a known bug in MapPoint 2002. A recent addition to
the MP2Kmag gallery illustrates the correction.
