Creating Map Tiles (Part 1) - Exporting MapInfo TAB Files to ESRI SHP Files Using PowerShell and MapInfo

I recently had the requirement to display sales territory boundaries within a Bing Maps web application that I had written. The boundaries were actually a set of custom sales territories (e.g. region, district, markets) using counties as a building block. After some research, I determined the best way to incorporate these boundaries into my Bing Maps application was to generate a set of map tiles which would progressively show the boundaries (e.g. regions then districts then markets and finally counties) as you zoomed in.

For much of the process of creating map tiles, I relied on an excellent series of posts by Pedro Sousa on his blog, Pedro's Tech Mumblings. Starting with Part 2 of his series, he introduces you to TileMill and shows how it can be used to design a map.

One of the first steps after installing TileMill is to create a new project and add map layers to it, and one of the options for the map layers is to use ESRI Shape (.shp) files. I had a bit of a head start in the process as I had been using MapInfo and MapBasic to create MapInfo TAB files for many years for use in a desktop application that I had written back in the late 1990's. Because of my familiarity with MapInfo, I knew that it included a MapBasic tool called the Universal Translator which is a data conversion tool built on Safe Software's FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) technology. This could be used to translate my MapInfo TAB files into ESRI Shape files. However, I had several different boundary sets, consisting of several different boundaries (a dozen total), that I needed to create, and using an interactive tool would be tedious. I also had two boundaries that needed to be generated monthly, so automating the process was a must.

Because I could use MapBasic to write something to call the Universal Translator within MapInfo I knew I could automate the process. However, I got lucky when I unexpectedly stumbled upon the Universal Translator User Guide, which included information on how the MapInfo Universal Translator could be called from the command line. Armed with this information, I was able to quickly put together the following PowerShell script to convert all of my files.

function ExportTabToShp() {
    param(
        [Parameter(mandatory=$true)] [string]$TAB_PATH,
        [Parameter(mandatory=$true)] [string]$outputPath
    )

    $baseName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($TAB_PATH)
    
    # Application name of the MapInfo Universal Translator
    $CMD = "C:\Program Files (x86)\MapInfo\Professional\UT\Imut.exe"
    
    # Command that generates a semantic control file
    $IMUT_COMMAND = "CFGenerate"
    
    # Input format is MapInfo .TAB
    $INPUT_FORMAT = "MAPINFO"
    
    # Output format is the ESRI Shapefile format
    $OUTPUT_FORMAT = "SHAPE"
    
    # Path and filename of the semantic control file
    $FME_PATH = $outputPath + $baseName + ".fme"
    
    #Path and filename of the logfile to be generated
    $LOG_FILENAME = $outputPath + "mut.log"

    # Generate a mapping file:
    write-host "Note the RemoteException that is thrown is simply a message stating that the 'Mapping File Generation' was successful:" -ForegroundColor Green
    & $CMD $IMUT_COMMAND $INPUT_FORMAT $OUTPUT_FORMAT $TAB_PATH $FME_PATH LOG_STANDARDOUT "YES" LOG_FILENAME $LOG_FILENAME LOG_APPEND "YES"

    # Run the mapping file:
    write-host "Note the RemoteException that is thrown is simply a message stating that the 'Translation' was successful:" -ForegroundColor Green
    & $CMD $FME_PATH --HOMOGENOUS_GEOMETRY "YES" --_SHAPE_FILE_TYPE "2d" --SourceDataset $TAB_PATH --DestDataset $outputPath --_EXTENSION "TAB" --_BASENAME $baseName --_FULLBASENAME $baseName
}

ExportTabToShp "C:\TABs\county.tab" "C:\SHPs\"

The first call in the ExportTabToShp function generates an FME file, which is a "mapping file" that controls the translation. The second call runs the translation using the generated FME file. Refer to the User Guide link above for more information required to expand this function to support other translations.

Note the use of the Call operator (i.e. &) in the above PowerShell script. This allows one to call an executable formatted as a string and is useful when there is a space in the path to the executable.

In the next part of this series, Creating Map Tiles (Part 2) - Creating a Sales Territory Boundary Set Using TileMill,I'll walk through a couple of the steps that I used in TileMill to create the sales territory boundary sets.