Overview
ECW for MapInfo is a raster handler plugin for MapInfo Professional and MapX, developed by
MapImagery, which enables these products to read ECW, compressed images.
ECW is a
wavelet compression standard developed by Earth Resource Mapping that provides high
quality image compression. Many data and software vendors are adopting ECW as their
standard image compression technique.
In addition to local, or network server ECW files, ECW for MapInfo
allows you to display Image Web Server images from Internet or Intranet servers.
ECW for MapInfo is distributed in 2 different ways. As part of MapImagery, a MapInfo
Professional image analysis plugin, from MapImagery Limited. And as a stand-alone
product, which is included on the MapInfo Professional and MapX CDROMs, under
utilities.
MapImagery has a free version, and a low cost commercial
version with extra features. Both the free and commercial versions have some GUI features
making it easier to work with ECW images. Both versions can be downloaded from the
MapImagery web page.
Download and Install
The ECW for MapInfo is distributed as a self extracting executable
archive. To install ECW for MapInfo under Windows 95 or Windows NT (or later) perform the
following steps:
 Make sure you
have MapInfo Professional 5.0 or later installed on your PC.
Unless you have a very good reason, it is better to download the MapImagery self
extracting archive, rather than the ECW for MapInfo one, as MapImagery is a
superset of ECW for MapInfo , providing a useful GUI
for working with ECW images..
Download the
latest MapImagery self extracting distribution
file from MapImagery
Download (6
megabytes). If you just want ECW for MapInfo, this is
available as a separate download, as well as being part of MapImagery
from here
ECW for
MapInfo Download (1.18
megabytes). Note that the version numbers on these download
archives relate to the internal version numbering of MapImagery products, and not to
MapInfo version numbers.
Run the
downloaded file by typing its name at a dos prompt, or double clicking on its icon in a
file manager. After unzipping the files, the installation program will run, and will guide
you through the installation process.
Follow the
setup program instructions. You will be asked for the location of your MapInfo software
(for example, C:\MAPINFO) and for the location to install
MapImagery
Further Information
Read the ECW for MapInfo Help installed as part of the
installation for more information. This can also be found on-line at the MapImagery web page here http://www.mapimagery.com/help/ecwhelp |
