My Account     Contact Us     Cart

Articles

Avenza Maps Virtual Training: May 30, 2023

Experience Avenza Maps® with the help of product specialists in a training course tailored to your organization’s processes and workflows.

No Fields Found.

Can You Create a Map in 5 Minutes?

The Day 13 theme of the #30DayMapChallenge was more of a question: can you create a map in 5 minutes? Well, we were up for the challenge! Here at Avenza, we used this as an opportunity to teach our marketing team (with limited GIS experience) the basics of cartography. In the weeks leading up to this day, we taught them how to perform a few simple tasks in MAPublisher to create a basic map of South America.

Simplified Steps for Creating a Map

We broke down the process of making this map into five general steps for the purpose of simplicity.

Import Data

The first step was to import country area data using the Import button on the MAP Toolbar. After import, the Artboard tool was used to adjust map boundaries to the desired position. The MAP View Editor could also be used to fine-tune the movement of the data. 

Stylize Data

The second step was to add a stylesheet to the countries using the MAP Themes button. From here a stylesheet was created by clicking the Add button and creating an area stylesheet. The stylesheet editor was then opened, and the style was assigned to the country layer. The Batch Generate Rules… button was very helpful in quickly creating categories for the data based on the desired attribute. For example, one map was created using the Population Density attribute. The categories were assigned a style based on a pre-selected colour ramp. Finally, a rule was created to create a grey style for the part of North America that attaches to South America.

Add a Legend

Using the hamburger menu button in the MAP Themes panel, step three included creating a legend for the map. Removing Rule 1 from the list and adding a title (if desired) were the only extra steps necessary here.

Add Labels

In step four, the goal was to add a label for the country names. We used LabelPro for this to make it quick and simple. We enabled leader lines to ensure all countries were labeled even if the label was too large.

Add Finishing Touches

Finally, we added a title and supplemental text and objects to the map. All of these elements were added to the document using native Adobe Illustrator tools.

Our process of creating a map in 5 minutes was recorded and condensed into a 30-second video. See it, and the other resulting maps, below!

NACIS 2022 Recap

Avenza at NACIS 2022

A few weeks ago, between October 19th and 22nd, we had the pleasure of attending the 42nd North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. NACIS provides a casual and friendly atmosphere for map-lovers from all over the world to come together and share their passion for cartography. Avenza usually conducts our presentation at NACIS as a part of Practical Cartography Day (PCD), using the opportunity to give a sneak peek at what’s to come in the upcoming year for our products, and demonstrate some of the cool functionalities of MAPublisher.

During PCD we had the chance to share the latest and greatest tools in MAPublisher and Geographic Imager, and we also got to demo some of our favourite tools within MAPublisher. This year our presentation was headed by Nick Burchell, our Director of Quality Assurance here at Avenza, and Rebecca Bennett, our Publisher Success Coordinator. Nick highlighted the new and exciting features within our software this year, such as the new attribute viewer and erase tools in MAPublisher and georeferencing storage in PSD files in Geographic Imager. Rebecca closed out the presentation with a demonstration that focused on highlighting the usage of MAPublisher tools in creating a fantasy postal map of Toronto! Check out the presentation below:

After returning from Minneapolis, we had the opportunity to get a comment from Rebecca about her first time at NACIS:

“There were so many amazing and unique presentations this year, and it was really enjoyable and inspiring to be around so many talented cartographers and GIS professionals. Everyone has their own techniques and special flair with their maps and it was evident in their presentations, and also in the Map Gallery.”

“Overall NACIS is a wonderful place to meet like minded people and share your love of maps!”

News Archive