To perform PiP analyses, you must first create an object file. Object files can be created from ESRI Atlas GIS BNA files, MapInfo® MIF/MID files, ESRI SHP, or MapInfo TAB files. The formats for the BNA and MIF/MID file types are published and are provided, as supported by the Spatial+ library, in appendices in this manual. It is also possible to add features to an object file by creating the feature in memory and passing it to the import functions.
When importing a BNA, MIF/MID, SHP, or TAB file, all valid objects are stored in the object file. Valid objects are points, lines or polygons that have been properly defined. Unsupported objects, such as circles or malformed objects, are not stored. During import, the library gives you a status for each object in the import file so that you can determine exactly what objects were correctly stored in the object file.
The import process is available on Windows and UNIX systems only. The following functions are specific to the import process:
pipImportInit pipImportRead pipImportOpenBNA pipImportOpenMIF2 pipImportOpenShape pipImportOpenTab pipImportInsert pipImportClose pipImportTerm
For complete information on how to import objects into an object file, refer to the pipImportInit entry in the function reference. The entry contains a complete description, as well as sample code.
Once you have an object file, you can perform a variety of PiP analyses. The simplest PiP analysis is identifying which polygon, or polygons, contain a particular point. You can also identify which zones, corridors, or circles contain a particular point (zones, corridors, and circles are simply buffered polygons, lines, or points, respectively).
PiP also allows you to extract ZIP + 4s that fall within the polygons in the object file.
The following functions may be used in PiP analyses:
- pipObjectFileOpen
- pipObjectFileClose
- pipObjectFileQuery
- pipObjectFindFirstContaining
- pipObjectFindFirstName
- pipObjectFindNext
- pipObjectGetCoords
- pipObjectGetInfo
- pipObjectGetHandle
- pipObjectFileGoto
- pipZip4FileOpen
- pipZip4FileClose
- pipZip4FindFirst
- pipZip4FindNext