You can open ESRI shapefiles containing M and Z values as read-only files. MapInfo Pro discards M and Z values when you save these files as MapInfo .TAB files or if you copy them to a new Map window. If you attempt to save a file with M and/or Z values in them, the following message displays.
The new table created will not contain M/Z data from the original table.
Click Continue to create the table without the M and Z values in it or click Cancel to abandon the save process.
You can label the PointZ or PointM layers only using these custom label expressions to show Z or M values at each point. However, you cannot save these values to a .TAB file.
To label M and Z values of a shapefile:
- Open a shapefile containing M and Z values.
- On the HOME tab, in the Windows group, click Tool Windows, and click Layers from the list, to open the Layers window.
- Click the Automatic Labels icon for the M or Z layer.
- Click the Layer Properties button to display the Layer Properties dialog box.
- Select the Label Display tab.
- From the Label with list, select Expression to open the Expression dialog box.
You can only set a Label with expression on a single layer. After selecting multiple layers in the Layer list, the Label with list disables and shows a message that says Mixed.
- Type the following:
- for PointM layers: ObjectGeography(obj, 9)
- for PointZ layers: ObjectGeography(obj, 8)
- Click OK to complete the expression.
- Click OK to return to the Layers window.
Currently we do not support native map files with Z and M values in them so you cannot save shapefiles with these values in them to native MapInfo tables.
You can use M and Z values to create a thematic map using a layer expression. In the next example, a PointZ-based shapefile can be used to creating a Grid thematic map using the layer expression ObjectGeography(obj, 8) instead of a field in the table in Step 2 of 3. This interpolates the grid based on the Z value contained for each point in the layer. If the Point objects contain M values, use the expression ObjectGeography(obj, 9).