Geospatial Solutions - January 2001

MAPublisher 4.0: Bridging the GIS/Art Gap

By Keith C. Clarke (kclarke@geog.ucsb.edu), Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Grant Ian Thrall (thrall@afn.org), Consultant and Professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Those who came to GIS from cartography have always known that the GIS user interface is often suboptimal for those last-minute fixes and adjustments that turn a plain old GIS map into a cartographic product of beauty. Production or graphic arts cartography has always relied on software that came from the graphic design industry, such as the triad of Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Macromedia Freehand. Now there exists a whole subset of the software industry based on bridging the GIS/graphic arts gap. From this subset comes a new version of Avenza Systems's MAPublisher, version 4.0.

MAPublisher 4.0 is a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator 8.0.1 / 9.0 aimed at Illustrator users working with GIS and computer mapping. The software runs on Windows 95/98, NT, and 2000, and MacOS 8.5/8.6 and 9.X. Once installed, users simply launch Illustrator as usual but have more than the normal suite of tools available. MAPublisher sets up extra menus, toolbar entries, and options that significantly enhance GIS capability. The plug-ins fall into the categories of import/register; scale and projection conversion; legend, grid, and north arrow creation; map drawing; attribute mapping; arc buffering; joining and smoothing; and table manipulation. As such, some duplicate various GIS functions such as those in ESRI's ArcView 3.2 and Autodesk's AutoCAD Map.

The intended user, obviously, is one with demanding and repetitive specifications for final map layout, such as large map producing agencies. A small map production organization, such as a county planning office or drafting room, may also find the software useful, especially when the primary tool is Adobe Illustrator. A potential opportunity exists for AutoCAD and AutoCAD Map users to pass over their blueprint files to a graphic artist to improve their visual quality. I see less of a market for individual cartographers.

Import/export

Some new features of MAPublisher 4.0 includes automatic map index creation; import and export of ArcInfo e00 format; import of AutoCAD release 14 (and AutoCAD Map) DXF format including color, fill, and stroke; import of MapInfo MID/MIF also with color, fill, and stroke patterns; import directly to layers in Illustrator; import of ASCII; georegistration of Geo TIFF files; and an intelligent projection editor.

Avenza recommends hardware configurations for occasional and power users. In the MacIntosh world, Avenza recommends a PowerMac with a G3 processor, 64-MB RAM, Mac OS 8.5 or higher, and 30-MB of free hard drive space. But for the Macintosh user with a G4 processor, the program requires 256-MB RAM and Mac OS 9.0.

In the Windows world, the occasional user will need an Intel Pentium II or AMD K6-2 processor, 64-MB RAM, 10 MB of free hard drive space, and Microsoft Windows 95/98, NT 4.0, or 2000 Pro. The high-end Windows user will need an Intel Pentium III or AMD K7 processor, 256-MB RAM, and 10 MB of space. Of course, users must also have Adobe Illustrator 8.0.1 or 9.0 and a CD-ROM drive.

RAMming speed

I installed MAPublisher 4.0 on a Windows NT system with 256-MB RAM and Illustrator 8.0.1. The install from the CD ran relatively smoothly, despite having to roam for files because the software wants to be in Illustrator's plug-in folder and not elsewhere.

I found the tutorial somewhat self-explanatory and reasonably well covered in the user guide. In some places, what you see in the manual is not exactly what you get on the screen. For example, when importing multiple map files, the order of the selection determines the order of layers. Following the tutorial hides one map under the other, which take some discovery.

Using some ESRI ArcWorld files, the limitations of the occasional configuration became obvious. Trying to import the rivers of California, for example, my computer RAMmed out. Avenza tech support sent the following email:

Problems such as this do occur occasionally with certain geographic features/datasets. Memory problems can occur (even with 128 MB, regular users . . . usually employ 256-MB to 1-GB RAM) due to the regular use of large datasets. This is because Illustrator loads the entire file into memory rather than just reading it from disc. Thus, more memory is required.

The good news was that tech support was prompt and helpful. The bad news is that you can essentially forget the low-end configuration if you want to truly exploit MAPublisher's features. I licked the first major problem I had with MAPublisher by getting a bigger computer. This was better than following the instruction manual on page 45 under item 5, asking me to "lick the 'Value Range' radio button"!

Fuzzy labels

After that, the tutorials ran smoothly. However, adding labels was not as simple as you think. The default for fonts is having them stroked rather than filled, which must be reversed to be useful, and the text shows up upside down instead of defaulting right side up. Because the streets in the tutorial are in small segments only a letter or so of the name shows up; you need an appropriate tool to stretch out the name to make it readable. Using the automatic labeling feature places the street name text right over the street line, requiring the user to move the label slightly away from the street. Although it duplicated some of the functionality of the expensive MapLEX from ESRI, MAPublisher's auto labeling feature is clumsy and requires some use of my cartographic license in Illustrator to make a presentable map. This experience was repeated for grid creation, where knowledge of tools covered later in the manual was assumed, and for creating a neatline, which was just plain easier to do in Illustrator.

Integrating incrementally

MAPublisher does what it promises. It does so, however, far more effectively for the high-end user than for the novice and RAM-starved. Avenza should be commended for rushing in to fill a demand gap between GIS and graphic arts software, yet it does so by retrofitting Illustrator with GIS functionality. When used to effect, these artwork capabilities are impressive. MAPublisher 4.0 adds some useful incremental capabilities that probably justify upgrading, should you already use the software.

It remains to be seen whether this incremental approach will induce GIS vendors to add more graphic design functionality to their software. We have long accepted part of cartography as an integral component of GIS, just as Avenza accepts part of GIS into graphic design. Maybe it's time we accepted all of it.