TransCAD GISDK Add-Ins

TransCAD includes the Geographic Information System Developer’s Kit (GISDK™). GISDK gives you the tools that you need to create a wide variety of products for delivering mapping and geographic analysis capabilities to your customers. Over 700 functions can be called from Caliper Script, a complete programming language for designing menus and dialog boxes (including toolbars and toolboxes) and for writing macros. The Caliper Script code is stored in resource files that you can edit with your favorite text editor. You can develop:

  • Add-ins that extend the standard interface to provide new capabilities or that automate repeated operations
  • Custom interfaces that focus the user on the capabilities needed for a particular purpose by extending or replacing the standard TransCAD interface
  • Embedded Desktop Applications that call for TransCAD services to add maps to your own programs

Add-ins can be used to provide end-users with easier access to existing software functions; to add new capabilities to the GIS engine; or to create hooks to your own applications. You can download any of the following add-ins to extend the capabilities of TransCAD 4.0 or higher (except as noted).

Name Description
ADD CIRCLE This toolbox creates a circle of a user specified diameter at a clicked point.
BATCH MAPS This add-in prints a batch of maps based on chosen map features.
BATCH MAPS DOT NET This add-in prints a batch of maps based on chosen map features demonstrating the .NET extension API.
CLICK COORDINATE DMS This toolbox displays a clicked point in degree/minute/second format.
GLOBAL GEOCODING (BETA) and FREE LAYERS DOWNLOAD* These two add-ins provide tools to download no-cost web-based geographic data sources and to geocode/locate your spreadsheet data by global street address, town, and postal code.
GREAT CIRCLE LINE This toolbox generates a great circle line annotation between two points on a map.
IMPORT BNG SHAPEFILES This resource file demonstrates how to batch import all the Shapefiles in a directory where all such files have a common coordinate system (in this case the common coordinate system is the British National Grid).
MAP INVENTORY This macro creates an inventory for each map open in the current workspace. Details for each geographic file are provided.
MARK DUPLICATES This macro marks as duplicates any records that have the same value in a field as the first record with that value.
MARKER MANAGER This add-in lets you manage marker files. You can open an existing marker file, save chosen markers to a new file, delete markers from the open file, and append markers to an existing file. This add-in allows you to share your markers with others.
POLYGON OVERLAY This add-in overlays two area layers and create a geographic file of the intersected areas with a table of the percents of overlap.
REPROJECT USA This add-in reprojects and edits a geographic area layer that has a global extent. The result is a map layer with the USA on the central meridian.
STYLE EDITORS This toolbox lets you create custom line styles, colors, and fill styles.
STYLE SAMPLER This add-in shows you how the various Maptitude colors, area fills, line types and symbol fonts look on your printer or plotter.
TRAVELOGUE This add-in lets you click on a map feature and view or print a set of pictures for the feature.
WRITE FORMULA This macro writes a text file with a list of formula fields and their expressions for the current layer.
VECTOR THEME This add-in Mapplication creates a theme on a point layer using two fields, one for magnitude (size) and one for angle.
ZERO TO NULL This macro finds values of zero in numeric fields and changes them to null. It illustrates how to read records in a dataview, get values for some or all of the fields in a record, check and change values in fields, and write updated values back to the fields.


The following examples illustrate various GISDK functions and are meant to help you program your own add-ins.

Name Description
ADD ANNOTATIONS This macro demonstrates use of the AddAnnotation() macro function.
CREATE FIGURE This macro demonstrates use of the createfigure() macro function which is used to create charts (line, scatter, bar, pie, etc.).
DBOX SAMPLER This macro displays a dialog box (dbox_sampler) that illustrates all of the user interface items that can be shown in a dialog box. Each item is displayed, along with the GISDK code used to create it.
ERROR HANDLING This toolbox demonstrates different error types and ways to handle errors.
TIMER ZOOM This toolbox illustrates use of the "timer" functions, used to execute a macro on a timed basis. 
ZOOM TOOLBOX This add-in illustrates how to use toolboxes, interface tools, and functions.


*Requires version 5.0 or later