There are two principal forms of data used in a Geographic Information System (GIS) - vector and raster. Both vector and raster data contain spatial referencing systems. MapInfo Pro (on its own) is primarily a vector GIS.
Raster images make excellent backgrounds for maps. For example, aerial photographs that show real-world detail such as buildings, refineries, and vegetation are well-suited as base layers for a map. Scanned paper maps are another example of a raster image. Use a raster image as a base layer and overlay vector data such as street networks, point locations representing customers, and postal boundaries, to create useful and visually appealing maps.
Raster images used with vector data must be registered so that known geographic points on the image coincide with the same features on the vector data.
Add-on products such as Vertical Mapper, Engage 3D, and the new Raster adds raster GIS capabilities to MapInfo Pro.
Vector GIS Data
Vector GIS data is represented as discrete objects, typically consisting of points, lines, and polygons. These objects are associated to attribute data. The attribute data may be contained in a MapInfo table, spreadsheet, database, text file, or other file type.
Raster GIS data
A raster data consists of a matrix of cells (or pixels) organized into rows and columns. A raster image can take many forms, such as .bmp, .tif, .jpg etc. If you examine a raster image closely you will notice that they are made up of many square cells. In a raster GIS, these cells are used to represent geographic data. Every cell contained in the raster map has either numeric or character attribute information associated with it. A raster based GIS can portray continuously varying data more effectively and can analyze multiple layers of data easily. Raster GIS is relatively fast and you can perform a wide range of visualization and analysis that are not possible in a vector-based system.
Concisely, a raster data is like any image. A raster may portray various properties of objects from the real world, these objects don’t exist as individual objects. On a map these objects are represented using pixels of various different color values.
Raster Data Types
Continuous - Each cell represents a continuous numeric value. For example, elevation, temperature, population etc.
Classified - Each cell represents a discrete categorical value. For example, agricultural or cropland, water bodies, built-up are or residential blocks etc.
Imagery - Each cell value represents a discrete colour. For example, a multi-spectral image contains multiple bands, each band representing different features on the ground.
Image Palette - Images with color depths between 16 and 256 colors have palettes that can be edited.