Integrating%20Custom%20Data%20Formats

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Learning Video Series Extending Map Suite
Lesson 1 Integrating Custom Data Formats Learn
the basics of how to integrate your own custom
data formats into Map Suite. Duration 45 minutes
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Prerequisites

• Working knowledge of Object Oriented principles.
• Basic understanding of inheritance.
• Familiarity with GIS and Map Suite.
• Do your homework and understand the data format
  you intend to integrate.

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Agenda

• Answer the following questions.
• Why integrate custom data formats?
• How does Map Suite make things easy?
• Why is a progressive API important?
• What are the important classes?
• What is required for a FeatureSource?
• What overloads are recommended?
• How do I integrate a FeatureSource with a Layer?
• Review the code of a working FeatureSource.
• Answer additional questions.

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Why Integrate Custom Data Formats?

• Support proprietary formats.
• Support existing legacy technologies.
• Support new closed open source formats.
• Dependency on an external data vendor.
• Enhance our existing implementation.
• Support distributed data scenarios such as Cloud
  Computing.

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How Does Map Suite Make Things Easy?

• Excellent documentation
• We Eat our own dog food
• Rich intellisense.
• Professional discussion forums
• We provide a progressive API

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Why is a Progressive API Important?

• The coding effort rises in step with the
  complexity.
• Easy tasks can be accomplished easily.
• Moderately complex tasks only require a moderate
  amount of effort.
• The most difficult tasks are possible.
• Our API platform will not let you down in the
  future.

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What are the Important Classes?

• Feature
• The basic unit of a geometric object.
• It has a unique ID.
• It can contain column data that describes it.
• FeatureSource
• Abstracts the underlying data source.
• Provides spatial query capability.
• Responsible for editing.
• FeatureLayer
• Wraps the FeatureSource
• Provides the rendering centric APIs

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What is Required for a FeatureSource?

• GetAllFeaturesCore()?
• Pass back all of the Features in your underlying
  data source.
• Optionally allows you to pass back column
  information.
• All other methods and properties can be deduced
  from this.
• Examples of deduced methods.
• GetCount()?
• Spatial Querying
• Important Caveats
• While this is the only required override you
  will find for large data sets our default
  implementation is inefficient.

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What Overloads are Recommended?

• GetAllFeaturesInsideBoundingBoxCore()?
• Provide a way to quickly find features inside of
  a bounding box.
• GetColumnsCore()?
• This provides a list of all the columns
  available in your data source.
• GetCountCore()?
• Provide a fast way count the Features in you
  data source.
• OpenCore()?
• Initialize and cache for your data source.
• CloseCore()?
• Close your data source and be prepared for
  serialization.

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How Do I Integrate a FeatureSource with a Layer?

• Create a new class by inheriting from
  FeatureLayer.
• In the constructor create an instance of the new
  FeatureSource and set it to this.FeatureSource
• From there everything else is done for you. No
  other code is required.
• Add any additional custom properties or methods
  you want to expose from the new FeatureSource.

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Sample Code Overview

• The sample is a OledbPointFeatureSource and
  OledbPointFeatureLayer.
• We have chosen Microsoft Access as the
  underlying data source.
• Any Oledb data provider should work as well.
• The data represents the world capitals and their
  names.
• We have overridden all of the recommended
  methods we discussed earlier.
• We have created a sample form to render the
  cities on top of ShapeFile data of the world
  countries.

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Let's Look at Some Code! You can find the code
we will review in a zip file accompanying this
video on ThinkGeo.com. To compile the code it
requires you have installed a full or evaluation
edition of any Map Suite 3.0 product. You will
need to add the MapSuiteCore.DLL as a reference
in the project.
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