MapForums

Is there a way for me to draw a boundary around push pins and export the data for those pins

I really need to be a able to create custom territories and export the data for those territories

Any help is appreciated

Yes if you want to do some programming. But this will give you a shape object for your territory. Note that this isn't quite the same as the territories that MapPoint knows about, and data export from that shape would be limited. Eg. you could export all enclosed pushpins, but I think there would be problems getting at aggregate demographics. Perhaps you could find all zipcodes or census districts in the shape, and then get the demographic data for thar.

The basic algorithm to find an enclosing shape is known as "Finding the Convex Hull".

I have the algorithm in some books, so I could give the basics here, or I (along with others on this board) could be oontracted to code it up.

__________________
Winwaed Software Technology LLC
http://www.winwaed.com
See http://www.mapping-tools.com for MapPoint Tools
See the Geoweb Guru for online mapping

i only need basic data like name & address exported

I am not familiar with any aspects of programming for MapPoint although if it is fairly basic I could probably handle it

Otherwise, I would be interested in finding the cost for you or someone else to supply the programming

Exporting data from the pushpins would be easy enough to do.
I've just looked up the Convex Hull algorithm. "Algorithms" by Sedgwick has a whole chapter on the subject and includes three different approaches. If you've done some geometric programming before, then it doesn't look too complex. (finding angles, sorting coordinates, etc)

I think you need to think about how the user will select the pins to form the new 'territory'. Eg. will they be all the pins ina pushpin set? Or will they be all the pins in a set with a particular pin symbol? Or will the user perform an "add to territory" function for each pin?

The process will then be something like:

- User selects pins to make territory
- Code is run that creates a shape object surrounding these pins.
- User selects shape and then selects the "Export To Excel" option to output the pushpin data to an Excel spreadsheet.

You could try this manually to see how this would work.
Draw the shape by hand, around the required pins. You may even find that this is satisfactory for your needs.

If you'd like me to quote on the convex hull stuff (automatic shape generation around a group of pins), send me an email.


Richard

__________________
Winwaed Software Technology LLC
http://www.winwaed.com
See http://www.mapping-tools.com for MapPoint Tools
See the Geoweb Guru for online mapping