USING MAPPER TO VERIFY NEIGHBOR RELATIONS WITH MAPINFO
Elaborated by Gabriel Colorado
inCode Telecom Group, Inc.
Mapper Map Basic tool to display Neighbors in MapInfo
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cell Sites and Handover Files .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Cell Sites text file.............................................................................................................................................................. 3
Handover Text File............................................................................................................................................................ 4
Loading Mapper ................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Creating Cellular Symbols from the Cell Site txt file. .......................................................................................................... 7
Loading the Neighbor Relations ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Neighbor Displaying Options .......................................................................................................................................... 16
Switching On the Neighbor lookup................................................................................................................................. 1S
Loading other MapInfo tables ........................................................................................................................................... 23
Cell Sites and Handover Files
Cell Sites text file
Gather all the cell site information described by the headers of this text file. This file should be TAB separated.
In order to see iRAT neighbors, the GSM network should be loaded as well
Handover Text File
This Handover table is built from the ADJCELL table coming from many sources: ASSET3G, RF Template (Bulk Export) or the GSM BSC dumps. The cell IDs
should match the ones refer in the previous file under the header MTX_Site_ID and must be alphanumeric. Please follow the format of the files attached with this
document as examples.
Loading Mapper
Open MapInfo then click on Tools and select Run Map Basic Program
Choose the file Mapping.mbx.
A new menu named Mapper will show in the
main menu.
Creating Cellular Symbols from the Cell Site txt file.
Once Mapper is loaded, click on Import or Convert Cell Sectors
Choose the text file built with the network
information. This is the one referred as Cell
Site txt file.
Tips:
These are the valid ranges for the following
headers in such a file:
MTX_Site_ID: (Alphanumeric). The G
denotes GSM and the U UMTS. This is not
a must.
Azimuth : 0 to 360
Beamwidth : 0 to 360
Radius : (meters)
To display co-located sites from different
technologies, a different radius should be
assigned to these MTX_Site_ID in order to
see them as different objects in the Map
window.
Once open is selected, the drawing process
starts.
This is a typical Map window generated once Mapper has read properly the information contained in the cell site text file.
Loading the Neighbor Relations
The text file containing the handover table needs to be saved as TAB file.
Choose the file ending in HO. The type is
delimited ASCII.
A second window pops up. Delimiter should
be set to Tab and check box Use First Line
for Column Titles
This is the table open from the txt
file with the NL.
Close the table created since it
needs to be reopened with
Mapper
Go to Mapper and click on Load Per Cell Pair Table
Choose the TAB file created previously.
Now Mapper has allocated these neighbor relations and associated them with the Cell Site file by the Cell IDs (field MTX_Site_ID)
Neighbor Displaying Options
Follow this snapshot to modify the Neighbor Displaying Options.
These preferences are strongly recommended to
see the neighbors of certain cell properly.
Halo and Bold are two features that enhance the
way the labels are written on top of the cellular
symbols.
Switching On the Neighbor lookup
Go to Mapper
Click on Intra Switch On
Choose as pointer the arrow Select. This pointer is the actual tool that you would use to see the neighbors when selecting certain cell.
Once a cell has been clicked on, the visualization and labeling process starts
This is a typical neighbor view for the cell selected by the pointer which is in the one with red dashes.
If you want to use the pointer to select any other object in MapInfo turn off the Intra Switch just by toggling it, otherwise Mapper will end unexpectedly.
Loading other MapInfo tables
To load other MapInfo tables into the current workspace, select the tables and choose as preferred view Current Mapper
Then, make sure the two tables PCPData (created when the Handover table was loaded) and Cell_Sites are on top of all the rest of tables. If these two are not
on top of everything Mapper will end unexpectedly.
