Introduction
MapTP is made for software developers. The MapTP application programming interface (API) is designed for seamless integration of mapping functionality into software applications. The creators of the MapTP product not only built an efficient map engine that delivers superior results to client applications. At least as important as runtime efficiency and richness of functionality was and still is the design of an API that is intuitive, flexible, and powerful. All programming interfaces follow object oriented design paradigms.
The term MapTP CAPI stands for "Map Transfer Protocol C++ Application Programming Interface". It was designed to offer seamless integration of mapping functionality into software applications written in the C++ programming language.
The Java and C++ programming languages have different concepts for organizing classes and for avoiding name clashes. While Java uses the package concept, C++ has namespaces. These terms are used whenever the programming language is important. For general descriptions where the particular programming language is not important and that apply to both Java and C++ the term package is used preferably throughout the documentation.
NAVTEQ in turn organizes packages in package sets. A package set defines a class hierarchy of cohesive, possibly interdependent and associated classes. A package set is often also a compilation unit.
The package sets are described in the table below. See the reference guide for complete documentation of the MapTP API for C++.
| MBase |
The MBase package set provides basic mechanisms for dealing with GUI, threading, synchronization, messaging, streaming, communication, resource handling and compression. It is used throughout from classes of the API. |
| MapTP |
The MapTP package set defines the protocol that is used between MapTP client applications and the MapTP server for compressed and incremental vector data transport. The protocol defines an object model that gives access to maps and map vector data. The object model consists of maps, map layers and map objects, including the map objects' geometry and attributes.
Furthermore, the package set provides sessions that are used for communication, a rendering engine that controls the interaction with maps and the drawing process, and functionality for a persistent map storage. With the persistent map storage any map data that is received through MapTP can be stored persistently on the client's local file system. From there the map data can be used for caching purposes or to enable offline mapping applications. |
| Maplet |
The name Maplet stands for mapping application. MapTP mapping applications are based on the Maplet package set. For example, classes of the package provide functionality for the connection management to the MapTP server and control the process of requesting map data from the MapTP server. Moreover the package set defines an interface for painters and provides a concrete painter class that can be used to paint maps according to MapTP's standard map definition scheme.
The Maplet package set further provides a windowing toolkit containing controls for building GUIs. In addition the package set contains the application's resource manager, the main panel of the application and the application frame window. |
To avoid name clashes all classes of the MapTP API belong to a namespace, following common practices in modern object oriented software engineering. The following diagram shows the namespaces of the MapTP CAPI:
All namespaces are available to the MapTP application programmer.
Please note that unlike the Free Map24 AJAX API the MapTP APIs are not free products. For an evaluation of the MapTP C++ API or to obtain a developer license please contact MapTP sales.
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