MapWindow GIS - Plug-ins

MapWindow Plug-ins

MapWindow has an extensible architecture that allows you to write plug-ins to add functionality using Visual Basic .NET or C#. Default plug-ins included with the MapWindow download include:

Shapefile Editor - For editing shape file geometry
Grid Wizard - For importing and converting different grid data formats
Attribute Table Editor - For viewing and editing shapefile attribute table data
Feature Identifier and Labeler - For identifying features and adding labels
GIS Tools - For clipping, assigning projections and reprojecting raster and vector data

In addition to these, several existing plug-ins other plug-ins are available for download from the MapWindow downlaods page.

Your Plug-ins

There are many cases where it may be useful to write your own plug-ins. For example, you may want to write a plug-in to:

Plot housing density by housing type based on a click on a particular neighborhood;
Re-project data from one projection to another;
Calculate the total upstream length of a stream network based on a selected stream;
Simulate a battlefield with tanks, obstacles and other interactive elements;
Launch a web-browser with the company web site for each of the businesses in a town based on a selection of a building on a map;
Compute and display land cover distribution within a selected region;
etc...

If you are interested in writing MapWindow plug-ins for your own use, or for redistributing them to others, you should look at sample code and take a shot at it. You'll find that it is very easy to do and quite fun.

You have the copyright and licensing rights for any plug-in that you write. This means that you can sell your plug-ins if you would like. Regardless of how you choose to license your own code, we would be happy to add your plug-in to our plug-ins download page either directly, or as a link to your company or personal page.

Sample Code

Most of the plug-ins on the MapWindow download page include source code that you can use as a model when writing your own plug-ins. One of the best plug-ins to look at for a sample code reference is the Feature Identifier that is part of the MapWindow application source code download. This plug-in is a fairly complete example of working with both vector and raster data through a plug-in.

Documentation

Draft documentation is available for download here: MapWinInterfaces.chm.