Although this month's review focuses on Caliper Corp.'s Maptitude for the Web product, there are several minor, but valuable, new features in the base Maptitude 4.2 package. For example, the new version allows users to save images to the PNG format. As before, the standard Maptitude package includes a substantial amount of data, including comprehensive streets for the United States, detailed demographic data, including population estimates for 1997 as well as projections for 2002 and 2007. Maptitude for the Web Maptitude for the Web is a World Wide Web mapping product based on Maptitude 4.2. Users first compose maps in Maptitude, integrating various data sources, cartographic design issues, spatial analyses, etc.
Users can query a location on the screen and have attribute data from a database displayed.
Maptitude for the Web allows users to easily create maps with various chart symbols. Maptitude for the Web provides a clear separation of the various aspects of Web mapping applications. It's possible for a Maptitude user to perform various GIS and cartographic operations and then forward the results to a different person who actually creates the Web mapping application. A relative novice could create Web mapping applications from the templates provided, but it's probably fair to say that for effective application development, users would need to be knowledgeable in various ASP development skills as a Web page designer. For those more skilled, it's possible to create new Mapplications and provide them as templates to others.