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!”
Toronto, ON, November 1, 2022 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of the Avenza Maps® app for mobile devices and geospatial extensions for Adobe Creative Cloud®, including Geographic Imager® for Adobe Photoshop®, is pleased to announce the release of MAPublisher® 11.1 for Adobe Illustrator®. This version offers full compatibility with Adobe Illustrator 2023 (Version 27.0) as well as with the brand new macOS Ventura (version 13) update. It also includes maintenance and bug fixes.
MAPublisher cartography software seamlessly integrates more than seventy GIS mapping tools into Adobe Illustrator to help you create beautiful maps from geospatial data. Import industry-standard GIS data formats and make crisp, clean maps with all attributes and georeferencing intact using the Adobe Illustrator design environment.
Users require a valid Adobe Creative Cloud subscription and a compatible operating system to utilize the improvements and enhancements offered in MAPublisher 11.1. For questions and information on how compatibility requirements may affect your organization, please contact our Support Centre.
MAPublisher 11 is immediately available free of charge to all current MAPublisher users with active maintenance and as an upgrade for non-maintenance users starting at US$649. New licenses are available from US$1499. MAPublisher FME-Auto and MAPublisher LabelPro are also available as add-ons starting at US$499. Academic, floating, and volume licenses are 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 to make better maps. Avenza also offers the mobile Avenza Maps app to sell, purchase, distribute, and use maps on iOS and Android devices. For further information contact: +1 416-487-5116 – info@avenza.com – www.avenza.com
Hosted by Safe Software Wednesday, November 30, 2022 10:00am to 11:00am EST
FME Auto is a powerful add-on that connects the GIS data processing environment of FME Desktop to the cartographic design and publishing environment of MAPublisher and Adobe Illustrator. We’ll be appearing at this educational webinar hosted by Safe Software (creator of FME) about harnessing the power of this add-on to automate several of your cartographic processes. Nick Burchell from the Avenza team will be joining Hans van der Maarel from Red Geographics and Mark Ireland from Safe Software to demonstrate how FME shines as part of a high-end map production workflow. During the hour, you’ll be walked through:
An overview of MAPublisher’s extensive cartographic capabilities
An overview of FME and its basic cartographic capabilities, including the Illustrator format writer
How MAPublisher integrates FME with Adobe Illustrator directly
The power of automation to achieve faster map production
Sign up here if you are interested in learning more!
Tomorrow is November 1st, which means it’s time to start another year of the #30DayMapChallenge! The challenge is a Twitter-based daily map challenge which involves posting a map that suits the daily theme each day and tagging it with the hashtag #30DayMapChallenge. It was first started by Topi Tjukanov in 2019 and has been growing in popularity ever since. In 2021, the challenge ended up with over 9,000 submitted maps!
The daily themes for the challenge are posted in early October each year, giving participants about a month to get a head start on planning some of their maps. Some examples of daily themes include maps that show colours, hexagons, fantasy, or islands. Some of the themes also function as a challenge, such as creating a “bad” map, the 5 minute map challenge, as well as a map that is created using new tools outside of your comfort zone.
This year, we’ll be sharing some of our own maps created by Avenza employees, and highlighting some on-theme maps from the Avenza Map Store! We’re looking forward to seeing all of the interesting and innovative maps floating around the #30DayMapChallenge hashtag on Twitter. Remember, participants can post as many or as few maps as they wish. At the end of the day, it comes down to engaging in the ever growing community of cartography-lovers.
We’ll see you on Twitter tomorrow for the Day 1 theme: points! Happy mapping!
For more information about the #30DayMapChallenge – including the 2022 daily themes, visit the official website or check out the GitHub repository!
Today we are shifting the spotlight to Geographic Imager, our plugin for Adobe Photoshop. This blog features the usage of the Terrain Shader tool, which was featured in our promotional video at the Adobe MAX conference last week!
Terrain Shader is great for adding dimension to your maps. It is commonly used to perform shaded relief, a method for representing topography on maps in a natural and intuitive way. The tool provides options to apply colourization schema and shaded relief to supported elevation data formats, such as DEM or SRTM files. Terrain Shader has several different settings that users can customize to create a shaded relief that best suits their needs.
In the spirit of Halloween, we’ve decided to show off the Terrain Shader tool by creating a fun shaded relief using a colourization schema that resembles candy corn!
I’m starting with a DEM file covering a portion of Jasper National Park in Alberta. DEMs are imported by default using a black-white gradient, with black representing the lowest elevation and white representing the highest.
Next, you can open the Geographic Imager panel and select the Terrain Shader button.
There are many different settings available in the Terrain Shader tool to customize your design. First, ensure the Colourization schema option is checked and set to “Apply colour map” which enables you to apply colour to your DEM. You can also choose the Method to stretch the colour map over a preset group of values or simply apply your colour ramp from the highest and lowest point on the DEM.
Next, you want to select any Gradient from the list and press the pencil icon to open the Colour Map editor window. From this window, you can set and adjust three different colour stops to represent the three candy corn colours you wish to apply to your map.
When you are finished, be sure to click Save and save it as a new colour map, titled appropriately (in my case, it was “Candy Corn”).
Finally, select Apply shaded relief and adjust the light source angle and intensity if desired. Shaded relief is what adds texture to your DEM to make it look like terrain.
Click OK, and you have successfully created your very own candy corn mountains! This is just one fun way to make use of the terrain shader to add a personal touch to your map. See the final result below, as well as a few other examples of colourization schemas that can be used to add a more realistic feel to your terrain.
For more information about the Terrain Shader tool, check out our related Support Centre articles and tutorial!
Join us at the North American Cartographic Information Society’s 42nd annual meeting at The Depot in downtown Minneapolis.
NACIS 2022 will feature over 150 speakers and presenters at Practical Cartography Day, twenty-one Main Conference sessions, two discussion panels, four workshops, and one field trip.
Adobe MAX 2022 The Creativity Conference October 18–20 Los Angeles and virtual
Adobe MAX is the largest and fastest-growing creativity conference. Join us there, where thousands of designers, developers, and business leaders will come together to learn new skills, discover the latest technologies, and discuss emerging trends. See for yourself how easy it is to make beautiful maps in Adobe Creative Cloud using MAPublisher and Geographic Imager.
With the recent release of MAPublisher 11.0, the plugin now comes with a new set of three MAP Erase tools in its arsenal. In this blog, we would like to highlight how these tools work and differentiate between each of them.
Much like the MAP Crop tools, there are three slightly differing tools in the MAP Erase toolset: MAP Vector Erase Tool, MAP Vector Erase, and MAP Erase by Shape. The advanced settings for the MAP Erase tools are shared with the MAP Crop tools, and can be accessed in the MAPublisher Preferences window under “MAP Crop Tool”.
Also like the MAP Crop tools, there are limitations to the types of artwork that can be erased using these tools. The purpose of MAP Vector Erase is to cut and remove vector data (points, lines, and polygons), however some Adobe Illustrator-specific objects may not be erased properly using this tool:
Blend and Live Paint objects
Any art using effects that have been rasterized
Custom art such as scale bars, grids/graticules, north arrows (this art must be expanded to crop)
Compound shapes
Legacy and overflowing text
Locked objects (command box: either treat locked layers as unlocked or skip locked layers)
Hidden layers (command box: either crop hidden layers or skip hidden layers)
Images
MAP Vector Erase Tool
The MAP Vector Erase Tool can be selected from the Illustrator menu. You can draw a rectangle or ellipse shape on the portion of the map you would like to erase.
You can also click anywhere on the artboard which will open the MAP Vector Erase dialog box and specify crop options. Which leads us to the next Erase tool…
MAP Vector Erase
MAP Vector Erase can be accessed from the MAP Toolbar in the Geoprocessing section under the Crop menu as well. This will also result in the MAP Vector Erase dialog box opening. There are a few options you can use to customize how you want your erase shape to be created, as shown below. In my case, I have created a bounding box to perform my erase with, and I would like to apply it to all layers in my document.
You can also click the Advanced… button for further options, which is useful for deciding how your labels are affected by the MAP Erase tools.
The final result is very similar to the previous step, however the MAP Vector Erase dialog box allows for much more customization and specificity.
MAP Erase by Shape
The final tool in the Erase series is the MAP Erase by Shape tool, which is also located in the Crop menu of the Geoprocessing section of the MAP Toolbar. This tool can only be opened when there is a single polygon selected on the document, which will be the bounds for the erasure. The MAP Erase by Shape tool is useful when you wish to erase an area that is not a rectangular or elliptical shape. For example, in this example, I used the shape of Banff National Park to erase this portion of my map.
For more information about MAPublisher’s new MAP Erase tools, please visit our Support Centre.
We’re excited to announce that the 2023 Avenza Student Map Contest has now concluded. Submissions for the contest were accepted from December 1st, 2022 to April 30th, 2023. Over the last month we have selected the winner. As such, congratulations are in order for the grand prize winner!
Grand Prize Winner
The Impact that Created the Nickel City Justin Jeff Fleming College
From the creator: “My map displays the terrain and geology around the Sudbury Basin that was created by a meteorite impact. Furthermore, it shows the active mines around the Sudbury Basin using a proportional dot technique based on the mines production. Also it shows a timeline of the mining history in the Sudbury area. It will be used to gain insight and understand the significance of the Sudbury Basin.”
Justin used the MAPublisher import tools to import prepared data from other sources for the terrain and mine locations. The MAP Themes tool was used to create proportional dot symbols for the active mines and the MAP LabelPro add-on was used to label and style the active mines. Finally, Justin used the Layout tools to add and style the scale bar.
Congratulations again to Justin! Stayed tuned for the open version of the Avenza Map Contest starting soon…
Toronto, CA (October 18, 2022) – Avenza Systems Inc., producer of the Avenza Maps® app for mobile devices is pleased to announce the upcoming releases of MAPublisher® 11.1 for Adobe Illustrator® 2023 and Geographic Imager® 6.6 for Adobe Photoshop® 2023. These updates will provide a range of user interface improvements, feature enhancements, bug fixes, and performance upgrades, along with compatibility with the latest Adobe Creative Cloud applications.
Data-driven Map Design in Illustrator with MAPublisher
MAPublisher cartography software seamlessly integrates more than seventy GIS mapping tools into Adobe Illustrator to help you create beautiful maps from GIS data. Import industry-standard GIS data formats and make crisp, clean maps with all attributes and georeferencing intact using the Adobe Illustrator design environment.
Expected improvements for the MAPublisher 11.1 extension for Adobe Illustrator include maintenance fixes and Adobe Illustrator 2023 compatibility. Additional feature upgrades to be announced soon.
Powerful Imagery Editing in Photoshop with Geographic Imager
Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop delivers an all-encompassing solution to import, edit, and export geospatial images such as aerial and satellite imagery. Work with digital elevation models, GeoTIFFs, and other popular GIS image formats while using Adobe Photoshop features such as transparencies, filters, cropping, and image adjustments; all while maintaining georeferencing and support for hundreds of coordinate systems and projections
Expected improvements of the Geographic Imager 6.6 extension for Adobe Photoshop include official Apple Silicon support, a revamped discoverability screen, maintenance fixes, and Adobe Photoshop 2023 compatibility.
Upgrade or Purchase
MAPublisher 11.1 will be available free of charge to all current MAPublisher users with active maintenance and as an upgrade for non-maintenance users starting at US$649. New licenses are available from US$1499. MAPublisher FME Auto and MAPublisher LabelPro are also available as add-ons starting at US$499.
Geographic Imager 6.6 will be available and free of charge to all current Geographic Imager Maintenance Program members and starts at US$349 for non-maintenance upgrades. New fixed licenses start at US$749. Geographic Imager Basic Edition licenses start at US$99.
Academic, floating, and volume license pricing is also available for both extension suites.
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 to make better maps. Avenza also offers the mobile Avenza Maps app to sell, purchase, distribute, and use maps on iOS and Android devices. For more information, visit www.avenza.com.
For further information contact: 416-487-5116 – info@avenza.com – www.avenza.com
can be selected from the Illustrator menu. You can draw a rectangle or ellipse shape on the portion of the map you would like to erase.
