What's New in MapObjects 2.2

The following are the new enhancements for MapObjects 2.2: flicker

1)        New Property allowing optional smooth refreshing of the Tracking Layer.
There is now the option to specify how the tracking layer should be drawn and refreshed - allowing many updates to be made to the geoevents without flickering. To enable this an additional Property and set of Enumerations have been added to the MapControl which are described below. Please note that the property cannot be Set inside the draw loop (i.e. in any of the drawing events) if so it will simply be ignored. The Property & Enumeration Descriptions are as follows:

Property TrackingLayerDrawing As TrackingLayerDrawConstants (Read/Write) - Returns or sets a value that determines whether drawing in the tracking layer is direct to screen or via an intermediate buffer for smooth updates. This will also affect any drawing which takes place within the related tracking layer events i.e. BeforeTrackingLayerDraw and AfterTrackingLayerDraw.

Enum TrackingLayerDrawConstants - Constants that determine how the tracking layer and associated events are drawn to the screen. Values as below:

Const moDrawDirect = 0 - The tracking layer and related events draw direct to the screen. (Default)

Const moDrawSmooth = 1 - The tracking layer and related events are drawn to an intermediate buffer, resulting in a smoother screen update.

Inevitably the use of the moDrawSmooth option will consume more system resources than moDrawDirect.

2)        Additional Projection Constants.
There are now a number of additional projection related constants. These are summarized below.

2 New units
20 New Datums
11 New type of Projection
1 New type of Parameter
231 New Projected Coordinate Systems
20 New Geographic Coordinate Systems
97 New GeoTransformations

For more details refer to the relevant online help topics.

3)        Performance Improvements when loading projected datasets.
Loading data which has coordinate system information with it (e.g. a .prj file) will be significantly faster than previously.

4)        Direct read of GIF / LZW images without license.
It is now possible to view both Tiff/LZW and GIF Images without the need for licensing thus making the EnableGIF and EnableTIFFLZW methods obsolete. These methods will remain for backward compatibility but will no longer perform any checking. NB these changes affect the MapControl only; no changes have been made to the Weblink control. In order to write GIF files using the weblink a valid license string is still required to be used in conjunction with the Weblink::EnableGIF method.

5)        MapObjects Support for the Microsoft .NET Development Environment
Support has been added for the VB.NET and C# .NET languages. This comprises the following:

Runtime Callable Wrappers (Assemblies) to allow the existing MapObjects ActiveX objects to be used within the .NET framework
On-line Context sensitive help for use within the .NET development environment
Samples demonstrating the use of MapObjects with both the VB.NET and C#.NET languages.

For more information please refer to the "Using MapObjects with Visual Studio .NET" section in the MapObjects .NET Helpfiles.

6)        Miscellaneous Changes
In addition to the above MapObjects 2.2 also includes numerous small enhancements and fixes to various areas of the objects. These include the following areas:

Reading CAD Data Layers
Displaying Image Data Layers
Tracking Layer
Internationalization (Data reading, writing and display)
Renderers and Symbolization