Mobile MapInfo solutions (for Android or iPad)

[Jaak L]

Hello,

I'm working on mobile development with GIS and have a couple of general question to MapInfo user community: 

1. Do you need smartphone/tablet GIS tools which could use MapInfo data (raster, vector, workspaces possibly) on the go? 

2. If yes, what should it really do? Just show interactive maps and or maybe allow to edit? Should it work without online connection?

3. Would you rather need a developer tool (like good old MapX) or rather a ready-to use application where you can add and share your layers and features?

Jaak

[David Reid]

I remember getting my first "smart" phone years ago... got it because of all the hype and hyperbole of how it would/could run at least a very trimmed down version of one's chosen GIS. What if any solutions did come about were either far too expensive for limited local government agency budgets, or required for too much additional devloper capability.

 

 

-Dave

 

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[Greg]

Hi Jaak,

 

Sounds interesting.  We have a number of users within our Local Authority who use iPads for mobile working. This is mostly to reference documents out in the field, rather than full-on data capture.  Ideally, we'd like something that could work off-line as mobile (3G/4G) coverage is limited in some areas.  I've looked at a number of 'GIS' apps and the closeest functionality-wise is Galileo as it allows off-line maps, in sqlitedb or mbtiles format, to be used. 

 

Keep us posted on how you're progressing.

 

Greg

[Zery]

Hi Jaak,

What you're doing is something I've been waiting for. I know there is current apps that did this. But it always good to have alot of choice. Me myself is in the middle of learning Obj-C in hoping been able to transfort desktop version of QGIS to iPad version, but we are talking centuries untill published ;-).

Anyway, as for your question :

1. Definitely yes.

2. First of all, it must be able to work offline, so it must have a capability of read/write data from devices storage. Write data what I mean is save data from online data. Edit data is not must to have, I've tried Android version of QGIS and is not very comfortable when editing. But it would be a good extra features with editing capabality.

3. I can't answer this, it based on user needs.

If there is some mistake on my answer, please correct me.

Thanks,

Montazery

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[Tim Rideout]

There is an interesting app that works very nicely on iOS and Android ‘phones and tablets:

 

PDF Maps from Avenza Systems.

 

It will take any GeoPDF or GeoTiff file onto these devices and display it, show where you are, keep it pointed at north, and allow the user to attach points with e.g. pictures or other info. You can also measure distances and areas. The attached points can be exported or shared with other users.

 

The app is free for non-commercial use ($50 for commercial use) so you will find it easily by just searching iTunes or Google Play for PDFMaps or Avenza.

 

Publishers can use it too, so for example we have just published two new maps:

 

The Scottish World Map; and

 

The Scottish British Isles Map

 

These show the position if (when !!!! J) Scotland becomes independent.

 

So people with the app can browse the Map Shop and find these and tens of thousands of other For Sale or Free maps.

 

The Pentagon / CIA are using it extensively, apparently, as it provides a quick and easy way for them to publish operational maps (I believe mostly created in ArcGIS, or Adobe Illustrator / MAPublisher rather than MapInfo) out to the troops.

 

Regards

 

Tim

 

Dr Tim Rideout

Director

 

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[Jaak L]

Hi all,

About Galileo - do you mean http://galileo-app.com/ ? It seems to be nice map viewer, but for custom vector it has KML only. And there is no editing?

Avenza PDF maps has its clear use case also - publishing maps for interactive viewing and PDF compatibility. There is also no editing and how to create PDF map with plain GIS like MapInfo is not too clear for me. Perhaps there is tool for that.

Full QGIS on tablet would be probably overkill - it has so many features what you do not really need on the go, it has desktop-oriented UI and the package is huge (I think it had over 100M installer - Play Store does not allow over 50).

I can see quite a few "GIS" apps in Play Store for Android, but the ones I've tried seem to be very limited. Mostly these were free ones or trials. There could be good ones which are paid or which require some extra service subscription, and real premium ones do not have necessarily that many downloads. 

Jaak

[David Sherrod]

Software-wise, on tablet . . . ,
I recently used igis on an ipad for mapping in vegetatively barren terrain in Saudi Arabia.  Satellite images were preloaded, to avoid the need for data plan (connectivity) while in the field. The tablet's GPS seemed suitably precise, as judged from the spotting locations at known features or along roads.
Advantage of igis over Avenza's PDFmaps is export as shapefiles. The user creates layers and then draws lines (geologic contacts) or places points (sample locations), then exports those back to laptop as shp files (through the itunes handshake with the ipad, using either mac or pc).

Or other way round; one evening I imported to the tablet an excel file that had coordinates; igis managed the point data it contained in a geographically correct layer. Similarly, I obtained a road network file, as shp, from Saudi colleague, and imported it to igis, as a line layer.

Like PDFmaps, igis allows the entry of data for points or lines.  In our case, we had data forms already in place, so dropping a point on the map brought up the form for data entry.

I haven't used the more sophisticated tools often described for field data on this List, so I can't compare levels of sophistication.  I had the ipad, and igis is free, so the combination went down easily.

[Kieran Stack]

Mappt for Android tablets has kml/kmz and shp file support, you can edit and create files in the field. It uses Google map as a default background, but you can add your own images. Export function includes kml/kmz and shp file.

Cheers

Kieran