Hello, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with MapPoint software. MapPoint is the only approved software at my office for GIS, but from what I've gathered on the interweb, mappoint's GIS capabilities are pretty limited. The software is being ordered anyway, but I'm just wondering what to expect. At minimum I would like to create maps like this one for select states:
http://flowingdata.com/2009/11/12/how-to-make-a-us-county-thematic-map-using-free-tools/
Thanks.
For a US county map like you displayed, a good (albeit not free) mapping package is Golden Software's Mapview. It's not a true GIS either (though it has adopted a few basic GIS functions) but is an excellent thematic mapping package for Windows. I tried MapPoint in an early release an gave it up.
http://www.goldensoftware.com/
I've used it since Ver 2. (I also like their Grapher and Surfer programs; i used Grapher, mostly, to do most of the statistical graphics for textbook on reproductive epidemiology by Allen Wilcox that came out recently. A few graphs were also done in psi-plot; another little known and relatively inexpensive stat/graphics package).
If you really want a GIS - most cost a fair bit - whether it's ArcView or Idrisi. There are some public domain ones (eg Grass). The CDC does have a free package, EpiInfo which has a GIS component.
http://www.cdc.gov/EpiInfo/maps.htm
since epi-map uses the arcview shp file format there is virtually no limit to the number of basemaps you can find.
Go to pages 29-32 to get a rough idea of what you can do with Epi-Map
http://www.epiinformatics.com/DownloadFiles/IntroToEpiInfo.PDF
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