Datamine Discover KB - MapInfo Raster

Tips and Tricks moving from Surfaces to MapInfo Pro Raster

Josh Knight — Fri, 09 May 2025 03:50:58 GMT

The legacy Surfaces menu is deprecated in 64 bit Mapinfo Pro, and replaced by the superior Mapinfo Raster which has been optimized for 64bit computing platforms and has many other enhancements and feautres not available in Surfaces.

It is strongly recommended to use the Raster menu instead of the Surface menu tools, and open raster grid files as "raster image" type.

[A] In Discover 64-bit, my MRR raster grid is not listed/recognized by Discover tools

Solution

Most tools support MRR files, and some will allow Field/Band selection (as ER Mapper and other formats are multibanded). If you cannot select a MRR gird file it is not yet supported in that particular tool. If you cannot select a Band to use, it will use the first field/band.

If you need to convert a MRR to a standard format, that 3rd party programs support, use the RASTER>Operations>Convert tool.

Occurrence

When I try to open a MRR file in Discover3D or Surfaces I get an error message.

Solution

This was caused by MapInfo Pro using a new version of the ECW SDK.

To resolve this issue simply copy the file -

C:\Program Files\MapInfo\Professional\NCSEcw.dll

To this folder and overwrite the existing old one -

C:\Program Files\MapInfo\Discover

It will be fixed in the next Discover release.

TIF images not displaying correctly or crashing on opening

kbadmin — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 02:42:08 GMT

Occurrence

I am trying to open a TIF file and it is crashing MapInfo Pro.

Or I have opened TIF images but the colours are not displaying correctly in MapInfo Pro 64bit.

They open fine in MapInfo Pro 32bit and other software i.e. Discover3D.

Solution

MapInfo Raster now handles opening TIF files and has some known defects. To disable the new MapInfo Raster handling do the following:

1. Navigate to PRO>Options. At the bottom of the screen select MapInfo Raster Preferences.

2. From the left hand side select Raster Formats.

3. In this list untick both the Display and Processing box for TIFF (.tif) images.

4. Also select the GDAL Formats tab, and untick the GeoTIFF (.tif) Display box it in this list also.

Restart MapInfo and reopen the tab files, they should now open and display correctly.

MapInfo Raster tools help button error

kbadmin — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 00:01:59 GMT

Occurrence

In MapInfo 17.0.3 (Discover 2019 Update) when I click the help button on a RASTER menu tool I get an error message -

Solution

To workaround this issue navigate to -

C:\Program Files\MapInfo\Professional\Raster\

Right click on the "en" folder and rename it, to match the folder path in the error message.

For example -

If you are in Australian English setting, rename to "en-AU"

If you are in Canada English setting, rename to "en-CA"

If you are in UK English setting, rename to "en-UK"

Unable to select a transparent color for a TIF image

kbadmin — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 03:48:46 GMT

Occurrence

I Mapinfo 15.2 or 16.0 64-bit, you have opened a TIF file via File>Open>Raster Image.

When you go to the layer properties to apply a transparency, the Select Color button is disabled.

Solution

This bug in MapInfo Raster hijacking the previous handling of Image files in Mapinfo. This is resolved in Mapinfo 17.0 or later, but requires re-creation of the TAB file.

To manual fix the issue -

1. Close the file in MapInfo. Open the TAB file for the TIF image in notepad

2. Delete the 3 lines -

RasterStyle 4 1

RasterStyle 7 0

RasterStyle 9 1

3. Save and re-open it. You will now be able to apply a transparency.

I've added a raster or grid image to my map window, but it does not appear.

Josh Knight — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:26:58 GMT

Try the following:

1/. Ensure that the map window view encompasses the raster image. Right-click in the map window, select the View Entire Layer menu option, and choose either the 'All Layers' or image name from the pull
down list. Press OK.

2/. In MapInfo's Layer Control dialog, is the image ticked as visible? Does the image layer's tick have a *?
If so, Zoom Layering has been enabled for this image, and the map window view scale is outside the preset zoom range for this image.
To disable Zoom Layering, double-left click on the image in the Layer Control and deselect the 'Display within Zoom Range' option. Press OK to return to the map window. the Image should now be displayed.

Note: Zoom Layering can be permanently disabled for all raster images by selecting the MapInfo PRO>Options>Map Window option, and deselect the Automatic Raster Zoom Layering tick box and Automatic Grid Zoom Layering (pictured below).