Esri ArcGIS 10 Now Supported by MAPublisher

NewsMarch 24, 2011

– Updated support for ArcGIS geodatabases and ArcMap document files for use with powerful cartographic tools –

Toronto, ON, March 24, 2011 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of the PDF Maps app for iOS and geospatial plugins for Adobe Creative Suite, including Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop, is pleased to announce updated support for Esri ArcGIS 10 geodatabases and ArcMap document (MXD) files in MAPublisher 8.4.1 for Adobe Illustrator. The latest version of this mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data for both print and electronic distribution can use its import tools to connect to Personal, File and ArcSDE geodatabases as well as MXD files. MAPublisher can make use of a geodatabase’s spatial and non-spatial relationships, subtypes and attribute domain information during the import process.

“The demand for using ArcGIS 10 files and geodatabases in MAPublisher and the Adobe Illustrator environment is very strong,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza Systems. “Providing this functionality in MAPublisher further promotes interoperability and strengthens the cartographic workflow that many users employ to visualize GIS data and produce high quality maps,” he added.

To fully import Esri geodatabases or to fully access an ArcSDE server using MAPublisher import tools, valid Esri software must be installed and licensed; at minimum, ArcGIS Engine Runtime. More commonly, an ArcView, ArcEditor or ArcInfo license may be used. Windows and Mac users without an ArcGIS license can still import data using the Basic Personal Geodatabase Reader in MAPublisher.

More about MAPublisher for Illustrator

MAPublisher 8.4.1 for Illustrator is available free of charge to all MAPublisher customers with an active maintenance subscription and as an upgrade for non-maintenance users at US$599. New licenses are US$1399. Academic, floating and volume pricing is also available. Prices include one year of full maintenance. Visit www.avenza.com/mapublisher for more details.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac and Windows users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training and consulting services as well as the PDF Maps app for using geospatial PDF files on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.

Avenza releases PDF Maps update on iTunes App Store

NewsMarch 16, 2011

– Geospatial PDF reader updated with new features and tools –

Toronto, ON, March 16, 2011 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher® cartographic software for Adobe® Illustrator® and Geographic Imager® geospatial tools for Adobe Photoshop®, is pleased to announce an updated version of PDF Maps, the popular geospatial PDF reader for Apple iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

“We are very excited about this update for PDF Maps. It improves on the previous version by adding new features and tools to make the experience of navigating and viewing geospatial PDF maps on Apple iOS devices even better” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza. “Since its initial release, we have received a lot of feedback about the app and much of it have been feature requests. We’re listening to our users, developing new and exciting features, and pushing them out as the product evolves,” he added.

This release of PDF Maps offers many features including:

A new tool to easily find the coordinates of any location in the map; including the ability to type in a coordinate to search.
A new option to display coordinates as Lat/Long (WGS84), Lat/Long (Map Default), Northing/Easting, or Military Grid Reference System (MGRS)/United States National Grid (USNG)
New support for GeoTIFF files; create tiles similar to how a geospatial PDF is tiled
A new option to render a map in higher resolution
Improved map processing speed
Minor bug fixes and usability enhancements

PDF Maps complements MAPublisher and Geographic Imager, the only available methods for authoring geospatial PDF documents within the Adobe Creative Suite. PDF Maps is available now on the iTunes App Store free of charge. For more information about PDF Maps, visit the Avenza website at www.avenza.com/pdf-maps.

More about geospatial PDF

With the release of Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9, a new geospatial feature set was introduced to the Adobe PDF specification. Geospatial PDF files are PDF documents that contain geospatial information such as real world location and/or GIS attributes. Geospatial PDF documents can be created in some GIS applications such as ArcGIS and Mapinfo and from within Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop with the aid of the MAPublisher and Geographic Imager plugins, respectively. The geospatial data contained in a geospatial PDF document may be accessed and used (for example to locate a specific point or measure distances) without the aid of any additional plugins, using tools found natively within Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9.

More about MAPublisher and Geographic Imager

MAPublisher for Illustrator is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator, MAPublisher leverages the superior design capabilities of this leading graphic design software. Geographic Imager is powerful software for working with spatial imagery in Adobe Photoshop that leverages the superior image editing capabilities of this raster-based image-editing software.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac and Windows users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training and consulting services. For more information visit the Avenza website at www.avenza.com.

For further information contact:
Tel: 416-487-5116 ● Email: info@avenza.com ● Web: www.avenza.com

Avenza MAPublisher Supports Cartographica

NewsMarch 9, 2011

– Open Cartographica-generated Adobe Illustrator® files using MAPublisher –

Toronto, ON, March 9, 2011 – Avenza Systems Inc., producer of PDF Maps for iOS devices and geospatial plug-ins for Adobe Creative Suite®, including Geographic Imager® for Adobe® Photoshop®, is pleased to announce new support for Cartographica-generated Adobe Illustrator files in MAPublisher 8.4. Cartographica, produced by ClueTrust®, is a geographic information system (GIS) for Mac OS® that contains geospatial tools to explore, analyze and present data.

“We collaborated with ClueTrust to give users more options when working with geospatial data,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza Systems. “MAPublisher recognizes geographic information from Cartographica exported Adobe Illustrator files. Users can now seamlessly work with data manipulated in Cartographica in familiar MAP Views, MAP Layers, styles and colours in Adobe Illustrator.” he added.

MAPublisher 8.4 also includes new support for thematic mapping. Create graduated colour maps, dot density maps and maps with charts easily using MAP Themes.

More about Cartographica

ClueTrust re-launched commercial GIS on the Macintosh in 2009 by releasing Cartographica, a fully Mac OS X native GIS which is available at www.macgis.com for $495. Cartographica contains an impressive library of import and export tools, integrated projection management, intuitive exploration tools, and powerful analysis tools. Academic, and volume pricing is also available. In January 2011, ClueTrust brought interactive GIS and geospatial field data entry to the iPhone and iPad with Cartographica Mobile which is available in the iTunes store for $79.99.

More about ClueTrust

ClueTrust is a leading developer of GIS software solutions for the Mac OS X and iOS platforms. With a long history of developing high-tech solutions for a number of sectors, ClueTrust products have won recognition and market leadership status over the past two decades. Their flagship product family, Cartographica, has made geospatial data intuitive. More information is available at www.macgis.com.

More about MAPublisher for Adobe Illustrator

MAPublisher for Adobe Illustrator is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a set of geospatial tools, MAPublisher leverages the superior graphic design capabilities of Adobe Illustrator for working with GIS data and producing high-quality maps with efficiency.

MAPublisher 8.4 is available free of charge to all customers with an active MAPublisher maintenance subscription and as a $599 USD upgrade for non-maintenance users. New licenses are $1399 USD. Academic, floating and volume pricing is also available. Prices include one year of full maintenance. Details are available at www.avenza.com/mapublisher.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Releases MAPublisher 8.4 for Adobe Illustrator

NewsMarch 3, 2011

– Powerful cartographic suite with new thematic mapping tools –

Toronto, ON, March 3, 2011 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of geospatial plugins for Adobe Creative Suite, including Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop, is pleased to announce the release of MAPublisher 8.4 for Adobe Illustrator. The latest version of this mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data for both print and electronic distribution now includes a powerful thematic mapping feature called MAP Themes. Like the name implies, it produces dot density maps and uses stylesheets to symbolize choropleth maps based on various types of data classification. In addition, it can easily create custom charts using data attribute values.

“We went back to the drawing board and redesigned how styles are implemented in MAPublisher,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza Systems. “MAP Themes is an exciting way to help you visualize GIS data. It offers a lot of flexibility in mixing graphic styles, swatches, symbols, rules and attributes. In addition, we’ve introduced support for new import formats including ArcGIS map documents and personal geodatabase for Mac OS. This has expanded the use of MAPublisher as a premiere cartographic and map-design platform.” he added.

New features and enhancements of MAPublisher 8.4 for Adobe Illustrator

New thematic mapping features including support for pie and bar charts and dot density maps
New import services: Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web Map Service (WMS)
New support for import formats including GPX and Microsoft Excel
Import support for Esri ArcMap documents (.mxd) (Windows only. ArcGIS license required)
Esri Basic Personal Geodatabase format support is now available for Mac
A new MAPublisher Image feature type makes importing georeferenced raster imagery easier
New Text Utilities feature that performs many text actions such as correcting upside down text, separating multiline text into single line and cropping text path to text length
New Join Areas geoprocessing feature that dissolves multiple areas into larger ones and still retains data attributes
A new option to customize scale bar labels; override labels for units, scale ratio, map scale with custom text
A new MAPublisher Tool called MAP Contour Tagger to quickly add labels to contour lines
Import support for data-rich Adobe Illustrator files exported from Cartographica (http://www.macgis.com/)
MAP View Editor enhancements and optimizations
Various other user interface improvements and performance enhancements to improve usability

More about MAPublisher for Illustrator

MAPublisher 8.4 for Illustrator is available free of charge to all MAPublisher customers with an active maintenance subscription and as an upgrade for non-maintenance users at $599 USD. New licenses are $1399 USD. Academic, floating and volume pricing is also available. Prices include one year of full maintenance. Details are available at www.avenza.com.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

For further information:
Avenza Systems ● 416-487-5116 ● info@avenza.com ● www.avenza.com

USGS Topographic Maps Available for PDF Maps iOS App

NewsJanuary 10, 2011

– Updated PDF Maps app available now on iTunes App Store –

Toronto, ON, January 10, 2011 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher® cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator® and Geographic Imager® spatial tools for Adobe Photoshop®, is pleased to announce the release of USGS (United States Geological Survey) topographic maps for use on the PDF Maps app, the first and only geospatial PDF reader for Apple iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

More than 55,000 USGS topographic maps are available through the PDF Maps Library to be downloaded and viewed using the PDF Maps app. The topographic maps are in geographically-aware PDF files organized by state, area, and 7.5 minute quadrangle (1:24,000 scale). A useful thumbnail allows users to preview the map before downloading it. Any iOS device with GPS or Wi-Fi allows users to interact with maps and use them for simple navigation, drop waypoints and use the compass for orientation. In addition, the latest version of PDF Maps allows users to export waypoints to CSV, GPX or KML.

“We are very excited about the release of USGS topographic maps in our PDF Maps Library. These popular maps provide a high level of detail and are perfect for portable mobile devices. We have developed an app that delivers content in a new way and are now providing access to content that users have been requesting.” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza. “With every update of PDF Maps, new features and enhancements continue to complement our other products, MAPublisher and Geographic Imager, the only available methods for authoring geospatial PDF documents within Adobe Creative Suite” he added.

PDF Maps also offers the following capabilities

Access and load maps through iTunes File Sharing, Wi-Fi or cellular network to read maps anytime
Access and interact with saved maps without the need for a live network connection (offline)
Download content from the PDF Maps Library
View your location on the PDF map using the built-in GPS device (iPhone and iPad Wi-Fi+3G) or via Wi-Fi triangulation
Quickly view, zoom and pan maps using gestures (pinch, drag and flick, double tap)
Change pin colors, position and label names
View the coordinates of the current position and any waypoint (latitude and longitude), open it in the Maps app
Measure distances and areas
Open current map extents in the Maps app

Visit https://avenza.com/pdf-maps or for more information. PDF Maps is available now on the iTunes App Store free of charge.

More about MAPublisher and Geographic Imager

More about Geospatial PDF

With the release of Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9 a new geospatial feature set was introduced to the Adobe PDF specification. Geospatial PDF files are PDF documents that contain geospatial information such as real world location and/or GIS attributes. Geospatial PDF documents can be created in some GIS applications such as ArcGIS and Mapinfo and from within Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop with the aid of the MAPublisher and Geographic Imager plugins, respectively. The geospatial data contained in a geospatial PDF document may be accessed and used (for example to locate a specific point or measure distances) without the aid of any additional plugins, using tools found natively within Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

For further information contact:

Tel: 416-487-5116 ● Email: info@avenza.com ● Web: www.avenza.com

Geospatial PDF in Adobe Acrobat: Examining latitude and longitude values

BlogAugust 22, 2011

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.

One way to check for georeference accuracy of geospatial PDF files is to use Adobe Acrobat. Open the “Analysis” tool from View > Tools > Analyze.

Click the “Geospatial Location Tool” from the Analyze panel.

With the Geospatial Location Tool enabled, you can see the latitude and longitude values of the map while you move the mouse over the opened Geospatial PDF file.

An important tip you should keep in mind: you need to set the preference option for this tool correctly depending on the coordinate system of the map in the geospatial PDF file.

Open the Preference dialog window:

Acrobat X on Windows: Edit > Preferences > General …
Acrobat X on Mac: Acrobat > Preferences …

In the Preference dialog window, find the preference category “Measuring (Geo)” from the list of categories.

In the “Measuring (Geo)” category, take a look at the right side. There are many options for the georeferencing tool. One of the options is “Latitude and Longitude Format”. In this section, you have a checkbox option “Always display latitude and longitude as WGS 1984”.

This option is very important. If the coordinate system of the map is “NAD 27 / UTM Zone 16 N”, which geodetic system would you like to have to show the latitude and longitude values in Adobe Acrobat? For example, if you are checking the latitude and longitude values in the WGS 1984 geodetic system, you should keep this option selected. However, if you are checking the latitude and longitude values in NAD 1927 geodetic system, then you should de-select this option. The difference in the distance at the same spot between two different geodetic systems may be small or large. If you would like to see the correct latitude and longitude values, you should be aware of this option.

3D Terrain Model using Geographic Imager

BlogJuly 7, 2011

PLEASE NOTE: As of Photoshop 22.5, Adobe has discontinued support for the program’s 3D features. This may affect some or all elements of this blog. For more information, see Adobe’s FAQ page about this change and the Geographic Imager compatibility information page.

We created a video to show that it is possible to use geospatial data and the 3D capabilities of Adobe Photoshop. It performs very well with a decent computer and video card.

In this video, a combination of Geographic Imager and Adobe Photoshop functions are used to open a DEM file using a script. The script also transforms a DEM into a 3D model and allows for an overlay of a colour model based on the data or a custom image (e.g. ortho image). Video after the jump.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RgKmJRJUG4M

How to Create a 3D Rendition of a DEM With a Draped Image

BlogJuly 7, 2011

NOTE: Prior to performing these steps with your data you would want to ensure that the DEM and image have the same geographic extents.

Using Geographic Imager, open your DEM file and set the desired schema type. In this case the DEM was “Auto stretched”.

With the DEM now opened and rendered as a 16-bit grayscale Image we can now make use of a number of Adobe Photshop tools to render it in 3D and to drape the image.

The following steps will outline the Adobe Photoshop procedures required to create the 3D rendition:

1. Create a 3D mesh: Under the 3D menu within Photoshop select “New Mesh From Grayscle->Plane”

2. We then use the “3D Object Rotate Tool” located in the Photoshop toolbar to manually rotate the mesh tilting it backwards, resulting in something like this

3. The resulting mesh is too exaggerated for a realistic rendering of the landscape so we will adjust the y orientation of it using the “3D Object Scale tool” setting the Y: scale to 0.10

This is the image after vertically rescaling it

4.Once the 3D mesh has been rescaled the image can be draped

In the Adobe Photoshop “3D Materials” panel, click the “Edit Diffuse texture” button (as denoted in the screenshot below) and select the “Load Texture” option. Now locate and select the image you wish to drape on the 3D mesh.

5. Within the Layers panel turn off the visibility of the Rocky Mountain DEM (as in the screenshot below).

The end result should be a 3D model such as this.

How to get Open Street Map data into Adobe Illustrator with MAPublisher

BlogJune 28, 2011

Edit: Updated with a new QGIS workflow (November 21, 2014)

The following tip is courtesy of Hans van der Maarel of Red Geographics.

————-

For many areas on Earth, OpenStreetMap is a viable alternative to commercially offered data sources. However, it is not always easy to process. This blog tutorial explains the steps needed to load OpenStreetMap data into MAPublisher.

1. Download and install QGIS, this is a free GIS application, available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. QGIS now comes with built in tools for downloading Open Street Map Data.

2. Open QGIS and zoom in to an area of interest. Use the OpenLayers plugin for a basemap if you do not have any imagery or mapping of your own. Keep in mind that downloads from the OpenStreetMap website are limited in the number of exported objects, so for larger areas you will have to combine multiple downloads yourself, or look for other options (for example Geofabrik).

3a. Go to the Vector Menu and Choose OpenStreetMap and then Download data.

3b. Choose how you want the extent of the downloaded data to be defined. The easiest way is to use the Map Canvas.

4. Open your downloaded .osm file in QGis using the Add Vector Layer tool. Select all the Layers and choose OK.

This results are shown in several layers depending upon what is present in the extent you have downloaded. In this case there are points, lines, multilinestrings and multipolygons. Note that QGIS only imports features that fall completely within the extent specified. So make sure you choose an area larger than your actual area of interest to ensure it is completely covered.

5. Export these layers one by one. Right-click and choose “Save As, then ESRI shapefile”.

6. The shapefiles can be imported into Adobe Illustrator using MAPublisher. After reprojecting, scaling and cropping we’ve ended up with the raw OpenStreetMap vectors in Adobe Illustrator, with all attributes still maintained.

7. Once within the data is imported successfully, you may now use any of the MAPublisher and Adobe Illustrator tools to style and customize the map in any way you want.

OSM Layers loaded and themed in MAPublisher

Optimizing Adobe Illustrator Documents with MAPublisher for Geospatial PDF Export

BlogJune 3, 2011

Adobe Illustrator documents with GIS data can be exported to georeferenced PDF files thanks to the MAPublisher Export Geospatial PDF feature. A geospatial PDF is an Adobe Acrobat file that contains geospatial coordinates. With coordinates, users can view and interact with the PDF to find and mark location data. MAPublisher exports all the MAP Attributes data in an Adobe Illustrator document into the geospatial PDF. Attribute values can subsequently be accessed and searched in Acrobat 9 (and 8 with limitations).

In order to ensure the best interoperability and geospatial PDF output results from your MAPublisher documents, the following work practices are recommended:

Convert document color mode to RGB

To ensure predictable color results, it is highly recommended to convert the documents color mode to RGB prior to exporting to Geospatial PDF. This is advisable especially if generating geospatial PDF documents to be used in conjunction with the PDF Maps app for IOS devices. The document color mode can be changed in Adobe Illustrator through File > Document Color Mode > RGB Color.

Crop data to the required extents using the MAP Vector Crop Tool

Remove any extraneous data not required for the geospatial PDF document by cropping the map using the Vector Crop Tool (located in the Adobe Illustrator Toolbar). If necessary, exclude data from being cropped by locking the its the appropriate layers.

Remove unnecessary layers

Delete any map layers that are not required for the final PDF map document. This may include raster layers, hidden layers, and layers that are outside the mapping extent or art board. Not only will this decrease file size, it will also simplify your layers list and improve organization. Delete layers in the MAP Views panel or the Layers panel.

Preserve data contained within sublayers

If your document contains map data organized within sublayers it will be necessary to reorganize/move this data to it’s parent layer if you wish to preserve it when converting to and from geospatial PDF. This is necessary because data contained on sublayers are forced into their parent layer by the Adobe Illustrator PDF exporter. Layers are also required for importing a geospatial PDF back into MAPublisher in order to assign a schema.

Remove unused attribute information

Data sets, especially those available through various data portals and government agencies can contain attribute information not suited or required for our mapping need, or perhaps we are only interested in the geometry of the data for representational purposes. In this case it is advisable to delete any attribute information that does not fulfill a purpose as this will unnecessarily increase the resultant file size. Select your data, open the MAP Attributes panel, and click the Edit Schema button. You may delete and organize your attributes using this panel.

Assign MAPublisher attributes to Adobe Illustrator Object names

This recommendation is not necessary but may be useful in some cases. In MAPublisher the #Id attribute column is a unique identifier MAPublisher uses internally to associate attributes with unique pieces of art. By default the art will have a name of “path” or “compound path” however it may be desirable to tag the object with a unique identifier from an existing attribute column for the purposes of making it easier to differentiate art objects within the Acrobat tree list, for example.

To do this we can use the “Apply Expression” option in the MAP Attributes panel. Simply designate the #Name column as the “Apply to” option while entering the name of the attribute column you wish to derive the attributes from as the “Expression”. For example in the screeshot below we are renaming the art objects contained in the #name column with values stoed in the “ROUTE” column with the results being reflected in the artwork listed in Illustrator Layers panel.

Use the Simplify Line Tool

Reduce the number of vertices available in MAP Line and Area layers by using the Simplify Line tool (located on the MAPublisher toolbar). This differs from the Adobe Illustrator Simplify Path tool because it takes into account X and Y coordinates. The proximity value or simplification tolerance is based on the vertical difference between the begin-end line and points off a line, not the distance between anchor points on the line.

Geospatial PDFs derived from or include images should be generated as 72 DPI

This has particular relevance when dealing with geospatial PDF files, especially those generated with Geographic Imager. When a 200 DPI (dots per inch) georeferenced image is converted to a geospatial PDF, the image will be embedded in the PDF as a 200 DPI image. However, when displayed by PDF viewing applications such as Acrobat or Illustrator it will appear as a 72 DPI image. Due to this, on export, MAPublisher converts the referencing to 72 DPI format since it must be imported back as 72 DPI

Following the above recommendations should help ease the transition of your MAPublisher documents to and from geospatial PDF.

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Yearly Archives: 2011

Esri ArcGIS 10 Now Supported by MAPublisher

Avenza releases PDF Maps update on iTunes App Store

Avenza MAPublisher Supports Cartographica

Avenza Releases MAPublisher 8.4 for Adobe Illustrator

New features and enhancements of MAPublisher 8.4 for Adobe Illustrator