Sneak Preview! Reporting Enhancements in Maptitude 2015

Maptitude 2015 is due out in the first quarter of 2015, and we are offering you an exclusive first look at some of the new features. Maptitude 2015 provides the most up-to-date and accurate maps and demographics available, encompassing the latest streets, postal codes, business locations, census data, and more.

Maptitude 2015 improves upon a number of areas of the software. One of the key areas Maptitude 2015 focuses on is significant enhancement of reporting capabilities. The improvements to the latest edition of Maptitude will make it even easier to present and share the results of your analysis in concise and informative formats.

Maptitude now supports completely new ways to share your data including single click exports to Microsoft Excel, cutting-edge charts, and PDF reports.

Reports Maptitude 2015 allows you to use the Drawing Toolbar to create a shape and then export data directly to Excel, simply by right clicking on the map. With Maptitude 2015, the reporting tools introduced in the 2014 version are available for every analysis tool. The tools have been redesigned to be much more intuitive, and to allow for report personalization. Charts Maptitude 2015 provides a comprehensive set of over 32 chart types that address a broad range of business needs with ease. You can create 2-D and 3-D charts, and perform multi-dimensional data analysis and reporting.   Data Sharing Maptitude 2015 continues to support the latest data standards and file formats with new import capabilities for Google Maps, Microsoft MapPoint, and Excel. You can also save to Microsoft Excel XLSX and create PDF files for reports and charts. More to come! There are many improvements in Maptitude 2015. Stay tuned for additional information! Please contact the Maptitude Sales Team with any questions.

Featured Maptitude Map: Bubble Mapping the FIRE Economy by State (USA)

How does the FIRE (the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sectors) economy vary across the US? This map, made with Maptitude 2014, shows the percentage of adults working in this field by State.

The map uses thematic mapping in the form of a scaled-symbol map. The simplest scaled-symbol is a circle, or bubble, and the size is proportional to the associated data.

Bubble maps are easier to understand than dot density maps, and unlike heat/color maps they are not restricted by the size of an area. 

As the map illustrates, New York and surrounding states have the highest percentages of workers in the FIRE category, which is also NY City's largest industry. The FIRE sector is clearly a prominent part of the service industry in the overall economy of the U.S. as well as in other developed Western countries.

Maptitude includes an extensive database of demographics at no additional charge. The demographics include the variables featured here, along with more detailed break-downs by industry of employment and occupation at the ZIP Code and Tract level. This local level detail allows for the target marketing of specific socio-economic groups. In the next section we will show how to create a bubble map. If you have any questions about data availability, please contact Caliper.

Tech Tip: How Do I Create a Bubble Map?

Proportional symbol maps scale the size of simple symbols (usually a circle or square) proportionally to the data value found at that location. They are a simple concept to grasp: the larger the symbol, the "more" of something exists at a location. The default setting in Maptitude is to scale the circles directly proportionate to the data. 

So, for example, if Toronto has twice the population of Vancouver, the population symbol for Toronto will have twice the area. Whether you are mapping totals, counts, percentages, rates, or ratios, the scaled symbol theme will allow to you effectively map anything from liters of coffee consumed per capita to the location and magnitude of earthquakes.

» Learn How Here

International: Updated Download Free Layers Tool

Caliper is excited to announce the release of the updated Download Free Layers Add-In.

The open source derived data now covers even more locations including postcodes for Northern Ireland, and streets and landmarks for Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Fiji, Peru, Lebanon, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Syria.

When boundaries are downloaded using the tool a basic Country Package is created that updates the Find and Wizard tools for your chosen region. The street layers, while still inappropriate for accurate routing, now support creation of drive-time rings and shortest paths across the chosen region.

» More Information

Tricks & Tips: Creating Multiple Paths Interactively 

The shortest path tools in Maptitude identify the best paths for deliveries and calculate the distances between destinations (see video.)

But, did you know that on the same map you can create multiple paths each with a different color? When you are using the Tools-Routing-Routing Toolbox "Add a location" tool, you can simply double click when adding the final location. Then the next new location you add is the first stop of a new path. You can even go back and use the "Add or remove destination" tool to manually move locations on any path.