My Account     Contact Us     Cart
 

Monthly Archives: January 2013

National Geographic Maps Now Available on Avenza’s PDF Maps App

News

Alliance provides new platform to access more than 500 National Geographic maps via Avenza’s database

TORONTO (January 28, 2013) – National Geographic Maps, one of the most trusted names in cartography for nearly 100 years, has joined with Avenza Systems Inc. to offer a new channel to access its rich map content. The alliance enhances Avenza’s digital map database by adding more than 500 maps from National Geographic, a world-renowned source, and furthers National Geographic Maps’ established reach with mobile consumers.

The Avenza PDF Maps app takes advantage of geospatial technology and allows travelers, recreationists and map lovers to view, acquire and interact with maps on their mobile devices, including iPhone and iPad, without worrying about data accessibility and international roaming charges. In addition, PDF Maps offers an in-app store to facilitate the transaction and delivery of those maps, consolidating, in a digital format, consumers’ access to hundreds of maps from multiple publishers.

“In the last decade, advances in technology have shifted how consumers receive and use information, and we have responded by making our rich map content available on a variety of platforms,” said Charles Regan, senior vice president and general manager, National Geographic Maps. “Avenza’s PDF Maps app provides a unique way for consumers to access our content with an easy-to-use in-app map store and a set of robust features that will enhance the map user’s experience.”

Hundreds of maps from National Geographic Maps’ extensive library are now available in Avenza’s PDF Maps system, including popular travel and destination titles covering five continents, historical and thematic maps, and educational and reference titles. The app provides constant access to geographic information and points of interest, with additional interactive tools such as measuring, place marking and location tagging. PDF Maps operates without the risk of lost reception, due to cell tower proximity – making it the ultimate traveling tool, as it does not rely on an Internet connection.

“Avenza PDF Maps provides the ability for anyone to share map-related information by documenting locations with customized notes, photos and descriptions,” said Ted Florence, president of Avenza Systems Inc. “This expands the utility of a map beyond location guidance, as it is also a tool to share experiences and locales with notes and photos. We continue to strengthen our community of map publishers and further advance the mapping tools consumers demand, and we look forward to seeing how the industry evolves in a digital age.”

PDF Maps is available now on the iTunes App Store free of charge for personal use. National Geographic maps can be accessed via the PDF Maps in-app store. For more information about the app, visit the Avenza PDF Maps website at www.pdf-maps.com or Avenza’s main website at www.avenza.com. Pricing of each map is set by the publisher, and free maps remain free to users through the PDF Maps in-app map store.

About National Geographic Maps

National Geographic Maps was established as a division of the National Geographic Society in 1915 and has been producing maps for National Geographic magazine and other Society media for nearly 100 years. National Geographic Maps publishes wall maps, outdoor recreation maps, travel maps, interactive maps, atlases and globes that inspire people to care about and explore their world. For more information visit www.natgeomaps.com.

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 as well as the PDF Maps mobile mapping system. 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.

Contacts:
Christine Simmons / Shana Starr
LFPR Public Relations – www.lfpr.com (for Avenza)
949-502-6200 ext. 320/209
Christines@lfpr.com.com / Shanas@lfpr.com

Kelsey Flora
National Geographic
202-828-8023
kflora@ngs.org

Creating a Super Overlay in Google Earth Pro

Blog

Our friends in the map library at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario have put together a very nice how-to on creating super overlays for Google Earth using Geographic Imager and Adobe Photoshop.

These instructions describe the process of georeferencing a high-resolution image, creating a geotiff file, using Google Earth Pro to make a super overlay and how to provide access to others. The full process is outlined here https://www.brocku.ca/maplibrary/Instruction/Creating_a_super_overlay.pdf

The Brock University Map Library can be contacted at maplib@brocku.ca

Create HTML5 Maps with MAP Web Author in Adobe Illustrator and How to Embed Them on your Website

Blog

 

What is HTML5?

HTML5 is the current major revision of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), the core markup language of the Internet. One of its major development goals was to reduce the need for proprietary, plug-ins such as Adobe Flash and to provide new graphics drawing abilities to the canvas element of HTML5. Scripting (e.g. JavaScript) is used to draw graphics, animations, and display other types of content. The potential of applications in online mapping with HTML5 technology varies widely including uses in fields such as cartography, GIS, demographics, and statistics.

Introduction to HTML5 Map Web Author

As maps become more detailed and data sources becoming richer, the way we present multiple data layers and map projections in dynamic map zoom levels and extents, traditional web mapping techniques start to become too limited. While many current web maps are rendered and served through a server, this could limit the amount of data provided and be slow to transfer as more and more tiles are served. MAP Web Author uses a technique to make maps from Adobe Illustrator compatible with browsers that support HTML5, specifically the canvas element. The maps exported using MAP Web Author are not server-side rendered, instead, they are rendered on-the-fly and content dynamically changes when the map is panned or the map zoom level is changed. This ultimately produces a more flexible, interactive and dynamic map. An HTML5 map also has more efficient storage and requires less space than other web map technologies. Stored vector map data (points, lines, and areas) is more efficient than raster tiles and can be displayed at any scale and even styled using CSS. Since HTML5 technology replaces browser plug-ins like Flash or Java, web maps generated by MAPublisher are accessible on Android, iOS, and Windows mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).

Files created from export

After exporting your map using MAP Web Author to HTML5 format, several files will be created. A ready to use index.html file and an index_data folder. The index.html file contains pre-formatted code necessary to view your map. In most instances, you can simply open the file in a browser to view the web map.

The index_data folder contains all of the necessary map layer data, JavaScript files, and CSS files to display your map.

 

How to embed an HTML5 web map into your site

The viewer will be embedded inside of a div element in your page (the “container div”). The map view will fill the container div.

For mobile specific sites we recommend setting the width and height of the container div to 100%, then using max-width and max-height to limit the width to the size of the map. The style should fit in the head, like this:

<style>
	#map_container {
		max-width: 479px; 
		width: 100%;
		max-height: 320px;
		height: 100%;
	}
</style>

For standard websites we recommend explicitly setting a width and height of the container div. The style should fit in the head, like this:

<style>
	#map_container {
		width: 479px; 
		height: 320px;
	}		
</style>

The following script tags must be included in the head tag as well. These scripts contain JavaScript functions that allow the map to function, like so:

<script src="index_data/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="index_data/openseadragon-min.js"></script>
<script src="index_data/avenza-viewer.js">lt;/script>

Keep note that the prefixUrl points to the directory where your map data is stored. It should be a relative path to avoid cross-site access errors. The id is used below in the body of your page.

<script>
	var avenzaViewer;
	$(function () {
		
		AVENZA.initialize();
		avenzaViewer = AVENZA.embedViewer({
			id: 'map_container',
			prefixUrl: 'index_data/'
		});
	});
</script>

Within the body tag, place the div element where appropriate. Specifying the div element id initiates the JavaScript to display the HTML5 web map. If a browser that is not compatible is used, then the message is displayed.

<div id="map_container">
	<div style="display:none">
		<!-- 
		The message below will appear instead of the map if 
		a user connects with a browser that does not support 
		enough HTML5 for the map viewer to function. You may 
		wish to customize the message for your site.
		-->
		A web browser that supports HTML5 is required in order 
		to view this content. If you are seeing this message 
		then your current web browser does not. 
 
		Please upgrade.
</div>

 

More information and sample HTML5 maps can be found in the MAP Web Author section.

News Archive