Autodesk 15606-011408-9320 User Guide - Page 28

What Is Autodesk MapGuide? Before you use Autodesk MapGuide, you need to understand some basic concepts, how to use the Autodesk MapGuide product suite as a whole, and how to access your Autodesk MapGuide Server and data resources. Autodesk MapGuide is a geographic information system (GIS). Unlike a typical map or drawing, which shows only spatial data such as roads, cities, and country borders, a GIS links attribute data such as population statistics to the spatial data. This link between the map data and the attribute data makes a GIS very powerful, because it allows you to use data in a whole new way. For example, you could create a map of restaurants that allows users to zoom in to an area of interest, click a restaurant, and then view that restaurant's menu, pricing information, phone number, and address. Or you could create a map of all power transformers in an area, so that your technicians could quickly generate a report of all customers affected by a particular transformer when it goes out of service. You could also create a facilities map of your company, including information about personnel in each office, such as telephone extension, title, department, and so on. Keep in mind that when you use Autodesk MapGuide, you are not limited to using geographically projected maps-you can also use drawings, floor plans, schematics, or others kinds of spatial data. Understanding Layers A key feature of Autodesk MapGuide is the use of layers. Layers are like separate transparent sheets on which different spatial data is drawn. By separating data into different layers, you can work with your data more efficiently. For example, if you have a map displaying roads, rivers, and parks, you could organize the map into three layers for each of these types of features. Then, when you want to change the color of all of the rivers to blue, you would change the color for the rivers layer. This would redraw all of the rivers in blue, without affecting the colors of the parks and roads, which are on separate layers. Layers are also useful for your users when they want to select specific data. For example, if you have highways and streets on individual map layers that overlap, and the user wants to select a highway, users can turn off the streets layer so that they can more easily select the highway without accidentally clicking a street instead. 28 | Chapter 2 Understanding Autodesk MapGuide