MapWinGIS6

MapWinGIS6 is the next major version of MapWinGIS, the open-source mapping engine behind MapWindow.

MapWinGIS 5 is one large MFC/ATL project that builds MapWinGIS.ocx. Version 6 splits that into two layers:

• MapWinGIS.Core.dll — the mapping engine as a normal C++ DLL, with no COM, ATL or MFC. It can be used and tested on its own.
• MapWinGIS.ocx — a thin ActiveX/COM wrapper over the core, keeping the existing API so that current C#, VB.NET, WPF, Delphi and VB6 applications keep working.

MapWinGIS 5.x stays available and remains the reference implementation during the migration.

Status

Early. The core currently includes GDAL setup and OGR-backed vector dataset and layer access, including feature and field reading and updates. Available formats depend on the GDAL drivers enabled in the build; tests cover shapefiles and GeoPackage. The ActiveX layer has not been added yet.

Build and test

Prerequisites

• Windows
• Visual Studio 2026 (18.10 or later) with the Desktop development with C++ workload, including MSVC v145 and Windows SDK 10.0.28000.0
• Git and PowerShell 7 (pwsh)
• About 15 GB of free disk space for dependencies and build outputs

First build

From the repository root, bootstrap vcpkg and build the solution:

pwsh -File build\scripts\bootstrap-vcpkg.ps1
msbuild MapWinGIS6.slnx -p:Configuration=Debug -p:Platform=x64 -m

The bootstrap script clones and initializes vcpkg in a sibling vcpkg folder unless an existing vcpkg installation is configured. The first build uses vcpkg to compile GDAL and its dependencies, so it can take a while; subsequent builds use the local binary cache. No dependency downloads or environment configuration are needed by hand.

Alternatively, after bootstrapping vcpkg, open MapWinGIS6.slnx in Visual Studio and build the Debug | x64 configuration.

Run the C++ tests

The solution build includes the GoogleTest project by default. After building, run the test executable from the repository root:

bin\Debug\x64\MapWinGIS.Core.Tests.exe

You can also run the tests through Visual Studio's Test Explorer. For the Release configuration, build with -p:Configuration=Release and run bin\Release\x64\MapWinGIS.Core.Tests.exe.

For additional configurations, dependency features, and troubleshooting, see docs/BUILDING.md.

Layout

Path	Contents
src/MapWinGIS.Core/	The core engine. Public headers in include/mapwingis/
tests/MapWinGIS.Core.Tests/	C++ unit tests (GoogleTest)
build/	Shared MSBuild props, vcpkg triplets and scripts
docs/	Build, architecture, coding, porting and testing documentation

License

Mozilla Public License 2.0. See LICENSE.