Coordinate Systems

If you haven't noticed yet, we released an enhanced version of the Grid and Graticules tool (MAPublisher 8.7 and higher). With the new Grid and Graticules tool, you will find that you can export grid settings and save them. Most importantly, these grid settings files can be shared and imported to another document.

Once a grid is created, save the settings to a *.cfg file. Two configuration files are created per grid: grid settings and label settings.

The new MAPublisher 8.7 Georeferencer is a fast, easy, and accurate way to update your current unreferenced map collection or data to prepare it for PDF Maps or other digital formats.

The first step is to open your unreferenced document in Adobe Illustrator. If the document is a vector PDF it is often advantageous to rasterize the document and save it as a TIFF to avoid any conflicts with text.

After creating a map with MAPublisher or Geographic Imager, you might want to export it as a geospatial PDF file. You want to ensure that the georeference information of your Geospatial PDF files are correct before bringing them into the field for use. A great way to use geospatial PDF maps (and GeoTIFFs) is to load them onto an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with PDF Maps installed.

In a previous blog, we discussed about how to georeference Adobe Illustrator document using MAPublisher. To recap, below are four of the required items to to make georeferencing possible:

1. The scale of the map in the Adobe Illustrator document (e.g. 1 : 25,000,000, etc.)
2. Details of the coordinate system the data is in (e.g. World Robinson projection, WGS84 geodetic system, WGS84 UTM Zone 32 N, etc.)
3. The XY coordinates of one tie-in point in the coordinate system of your map in the Adobe Illustrator document
4. The map's rotation angle.

We found that the most tricky information to collect is the coordinate system of the map. It can be very easy if it is clealy indicated in a map like this:

If you are using an existing Adobe Illustrator file that was created without the use of MAPublisher, then it does not contain any geographic parameters. The following step will enable you to georeference your Adobe Illustrator document and ultimately create an attribute-rich, accurate scale and world grid structure for your map. Please familliarize yourself with the main MAPublisher functions and in particular those in the MAP Views section of the MAPublisher User Guide (chapter 4) before proceeding.

Before beginning to georeference an Adobe Illustrator file, you must be in posession of the following information:

• The map scale in the Adobe Illustrator file (e.g. 1:25,000 etc.)
• Details of the coordinate system the data is in (e.g. World Robinson projection, WGS84 geodetic system, WGS84 UTM Zone 32 N, etc.)
• The XY coordinates of one tie-in point in the coordinate system on the map in the Adobe Illustrator document
• Finally, the MAP rotation angle value.