I just got really started with MapPoint last night, and I'm starting to get that really bad, cold-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach feeling that comes on when you realize that the software you were so excited about maybe isn't the solution after all.

I'm on my 30-day trial. I've uploaded 47,000 points to my account, and they all geocode nicely. Well, when I say "all", I mean 100 at a time.

That's the big problem. I'm a newbie, and I don't know for sure, but it looks like MapPoint is really just for finding your (finite number of) stores and showing them on a map.

My 47,000 points represent gasoline and convenience store sites all across the U.S. Whereas MapPoint seems to be centered around "Hey, let's find some sites near your area of interest", what I'm wanting to do is more like, "Hey, show ALL of my points within the user's field of vision--wherever he may be in the country--and make all of them that are on-screen to be clickable."

There seems to be a limit of 250 pushpins you can have loaded at a time, and only 100 "hot spots" (clickable areas). My users come in at the (x,y) location they prefer to start at, and I show them as many points as I can around that area. But once they zoom out and move away, the points end. Since I can only show 100 at a time (unclickable points are useless to me), they find the "end of the world" rather quickly.

I'd like my points to just always be there. Just as you don't have to run a FindNearby to show streets and such, so I would like my points to just always be viewable. Moreover, when on-screen, my points need to be clickable as well.

Am I just barking up the wrong tree here with MapPoint?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond. I love Microsoft, and I'm just trying to fend off this dark cloud of disappointment over MapPoint.

I might be able to help. If you want, reply to amachinis@spatialpoint.com with your phone #.
We speacialize in this stuff.

Best regards,

-Alex

Steven Pushee responds:

Hello,

Let's take this piece at a time:

1. Performance - This is a web service and so suffers from the limitations
that any application that needs to make calls back and forth over the
internet will, specifically in your scenario, performance problems. Right
now the limit on pushpin display is 99 (valid range of array 0-100). The
more info you send across the wire the worse performance times will be. If
you want to display more icons you can draw them yourself using the .NET
GDI+ drawing classes. There's a demo called 'Client Point Drawing' on the
demo site http://demo.mappoint.net/. There's no reason why you can't make
them all clickable if you so wish.

2. Display - Take a average size map, which you would be displaying to an
end user, zoom out to show Atlanta, and now stick your 500+ icons on it,
each of which is probably 16X16 pixels. Often what you'll get is a mess
with icons overlapping and definitely no place to stick labels if you
wanted to, way to busy, way to much information for a customer. Try taking
that same size map showing the entire US and stick your 47,000 icons on it,
then try to make them all clickable, all of which leads me to the next
point...

3. Needs of the user - From your description this sounds like a typical
'Locator' application. You are trying to get the end user into your
'locations' whether they be gas stations or retail stores. I've dealt with
100s of locator apps over the last 3+ years and you need to make them
simple. A huge percentage of these applcations show LESS than 10 locations
at a time (the norm is probably 5). Many of these applications also give
the user a link to get the 'next 5 locations' and so forth and these links
are almost never used by the end user. For a locator customer I assure
you that showing 500+ locations on a map is almost totally USELESS. If
this isn't a 'locator' type of app please fill me in on the details.

4. "I'd like my points to just always be there" - There's no such thing(to
my knowledge). Let's think this through, the map data and your data are
two separate entities. It sounds like you want us to integrate your data
and every other customers data with the map data so your point 'can just
always be there'. If you think that you can find an application our there
that does that then good luck.

Question: "Am I just barking up the wrong tree here with MapPoint?"

Answer: MapPoint is a real good app. Whether it is the best solution
depends on your needs. If I'm right in my assumption that you are building
a 'locator' type of application then MapPoint is a good solution, you just
need to rethink what your customers really need. If this isn't a 'locator'
type of solution please feel to fill me in on the details either here or to
my email (just remove the nospam part).


Steven Pushee

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use. © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved.

Well, here's an example of how our users use maps in our applications.

Some guy at BigOil enters our website and selects a market region--say, Los Angeles. Or Kansas City. Or Atlanta.

Oftentimes, he wants that first view to be an entire-market view. He wants to see all of his sites (say, 150 sites) plus all his competitors. Let's say his in blue, and competitors in red.

That initial view usually lets him orient himself to his presence in the market. Showing roads and highways alone at this point isn't useful to him. He wants to see his entire retail network at once.

From that point, he'll usually zoom in on an area or territory he wants to study in detail. This is often done by just visually identifying a cluster of outlets in the initial view. He may recognize this cluster as near such-and-such mall, or at this limited-access highway location.

So, seeing site coverage is very important. I've written these kinds of apps using MapInfo MapX and ArcIMS for six years now, and I've watched many of our clients start this way. Sure, sometimes they start with an address and never actually want to see a "macro" view. But often, at some point in the process they want to look--at least glance--at their overall market coverage.

I'm hopeful, after reading your post, that I can basically render 100 "hot spots" around the current (x,y) location, and any "leftover" sites I can maybe draw using the example you provided.

This, I would think, would take care of that issue. And if performance is awful, then we'll have to then talk about what things must go.

If I sounded like I'm bashing MapPoint, I'm not. You can't find a bigger MS homer than me. But I've been hopeful about moving our clients away from the big, expensive ESRI/MapInfo solutions and toward MapPoint (with an understandable shift in functionality), and I don't want to sacrifice usability if there's some other way.

Another possibility might be to "zoom-layer" with MapPoint somehow--show no pushpins until a certain zoom-level has been reached. Prior to that, maybe show nothing (not so good) or maybe do this client-draw method (better).

Response found on from the MapPoint forum:


You have to decide if MapPoint is right for you. Keep in mind that 47,000 POIs you are reaching the upper limit of MapPoint. I think the max. number is 50,000. Make sure this list will not grow over 50,000.

You are correct, MapPoint is for finding your (finite number of) stores and showing them on a map, which is what most people want. As Steve mentions in his response, adding too many POIs can clutter the map to make the map useless.

Steve also insinuates that there are no applications that can do what you want. This is incorrect. There is a site that does exactly what you want. It is at www.geocaching.com. I helped design and deploy that site. MapPoint was not an option because they had in excess of 200,000 POIs and their users updated the POIs constantly.

Their maps display fast, no performance problems even when you request several thousand POIs and they are clickable without using a separate ?Client Point Drawing?. They implemented their POIs so they are ?always there?. Using an automated update and spatial index feature that actually builds the POIs layers right into the map and the map display. An innovative feature is that you can pan across to a new area and the POIs will appear. If you click on one, that software builds a new list below the map. The POI you clicked will appear on the top of the list and then ranks them in order based on distance. Mapping applications came from GeoMicro.