Summer, 2005. In this quarter’s Society for News Design Journal, Catherine Farley, deputy graphics director at the Toronto Star newspaper, discussed how the newspaper’s graphics department used MAPublisher and Adobe Illustrator to quickly and easily produce maps for the 2004 US and Canadian federal elections.
“We knew we were on to something when election night editors were using our proofs as road maps for their stories…..We also knew we would not have time to color the map manually so we used MAPublisher to automate the process.”
Toronto, ON, May 25, 2005 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher cartographic software and MAPdataUSA and MAPdataWorld GIS data products, is pleased to announce that it will support HarrysMaps of Switzerland and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) project to remap the city of Nairobi, Kenya.
Along with other supporters such as P’Auer Printing Inc, Adobe Systems Inc. and Yupo Europe GmbH, Avenza will provide software and services free of charge to this not-for-profit project whose ultimate goal is to provide local decision makers, authorities, investors and tourists with handy, high quality paper maps for daily use.
“MAPublisher will play an important role in the creation of the high-quality maps, set as our ultimate goal for this project” said Harry Keller of HarrysMaps, the chief cartographer and project supervisor. “We are all well aware of MAPublisher’s ability to easily and effortlessly create great maps and we are very pleased and thankful for Avenza’s support for this project”, he added.
MAPublisher will be used in the cartographic design and production work using data derived from the RCMRD’s processing of satellite imagery to create the most up-to-date GIS database possible.
“Avenza is always willing to support worthwhile projects in the developing world such as this one in Nairobi” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza. “We are pleased that MAPublisher will be used in this important project and we applaud the RCMRD’s endeavour to generate this new database and HarrysMaps’ initiative to produce the map for the city”, he added.
More about MAPublisher
MAPublisher is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator and Xtras for Macromedia Freehand, MAPublisher leverages the superior graphics editing capabilities of these applications with the strength and power of GIS data. Full details and downloadable demo versions are available at www.avenza.com.
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. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.
More about the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development
The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development was established in Nairobi, Kenya in 1975 under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the then Organization of African Unity (OAU). It is a non-profit intergovernmental organization that currently has 14 member states in southern and eastern Africa. The centre’s main objectives are: to provide services in the fields of surveying, and mapping; to provide training for nationals of member states in surveying, mapping and remote sensing; and to provide advisory services on matters relating to surveying and mapping. More information can be found on the organization’s website at www.rcmrd.org
For further information:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: info@avenza.com
Web: www.avenza.com
Powerful mapmaking software now supports Adobe Illustrator Creative Suite 2
Toronto, ON, May 17, 2005 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher cartographic software, and MAPdata USA, MAPdata World and MajorCities USA royalty-free GIS/cartographic data files, announces the release of MAPublisher 6.2.
MAPublisher 6.2 is the latest version of this powerful mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data ensures compatibility with the new Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2) that was released earlier this month. All earlier versions of MAPublisher are not compatible with Illustrator CS2.
“The timely release of MAPublisher 6.2 (so soon after Adobe began shipping) is demonstrative of our continuing commitment to keep pace with the new releases from Adobe,” said Ted Florence, president of Avenza Systems. “We are also pleased to have taken this opportunity to include new functionality in response to customer requests”, he added.
In addition to being compatible with Adobe Illustrator CS2, CS and 10, MAPublisher 6.2 adds the ability to simultaneously export multiple Illustrator map layers to GIS data formats. Previous versions could only export single layers at a time.
MAPublisher 6.2 for Adobe Illustrator is a full product update that is free to all current MAPublisher Maintenance Program subscribers and replaces the current shipping version of MAPublisher 6.1 for all new customers. All other customers, including MAPublisher 6.x customers with expired maintenance, will be required to purchase this upgrade at the usual upgrade price. MAPublisher for FreeHand users can crossgrade for US$200 if they have maintenance or US$599 if they do not.
More about MAPublisher for Illustrator
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 graphics capabilities of this graphics design software. Avenza also offers MAPublisher 5.0 for FreeHand – a suite of Xtras that add mapmaking functionality to Macromedia Freehand 10 and MX. Full details are available at www.avenza.com.
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. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.
For further information:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: info@avenza.com
Web: www.avenza.com
Toronto, ON, April 25, 2005 – Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher cartographic software, announces that the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., has chosen MAPublisher software for use in their remote sensing laboratory.
“MAPublisher will play an important role in the creation of high-quality maps within our department” said Prof. Jonathan Aitchison, Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. “We feel that good map creation and cartography are important to any geographic or geologic exercise and we are excited about using MAPublisher to enhance those skills at our school”, he added.
MAPublisher will be primarily used in the Remote Sensing Laboratory. Staff and students, particularly those working on the geodynamics of Eastern Asia, will be able to take advantage of the graphics capabilities of MAPublisher to produce high-quality maps.
More about MAPublisher
MAPublisher is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator and Xtras for Macromedia Freehand, MAPublisher leverages the superior graphics editing capabilities of these applications with the strength and power of GIS data. Full details and downloadable demo versions are available at www.avenza.com.
More about Avenza Systems Inc.
Avenza Systems Inc. is a privately held, award-winning supplier of powerful map-making software and affordable geodata products. The Company also offers product training and consulting services. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.
More about the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong
The Department of Earth Sciences was recently established at the University of Hong Kong and is ideally situated on the margin of east Asia. Opportunities exist to undertake genuinely new research into the tectonic evolution of both ancient and modern orogenic systems in this fascinating area. The subtropical location and local geology of Hong Kong present significant challenges and employment opportunities for engineering and environmental geologists and are another major focus of the department.
For further information:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: info@avenza.com
Web: www.avenza.com
Powerful mapmaking software for Adobe Illustrator is now accessible via the Internet
Toronto, ON, April 19, 2005 – Avenza Systems Inc. is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Internet-accessible floating or networked licenses of MAPublisher 6 for Adobe Illustrator. MAPublisher 6 is feature-rich mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data and the addition of Internet-accessible floating licenses make this powerful cartographic production environment even more efficient and workgroup-friendly. This new license format allows access to MAPublisher and all its functionality via remote access to a Windows, Mac or Linux server host using a normal Internet connection. It provides the perfect solution for users who travel, work offsite and/or for workgroups composed of decentralized personnel.
“The introduction of MAPublisher 6 floating licenses last year marked an exciting new era in MAPublisher licensing and we are now equally as excited to provide this new approach to software sharing.” said Ted Florence, president of Avenza Systems, “The MAPublisher Internet Floating license makes MAPublisher much more productive in small or large multi-user or multi-computer environments where all users are not in the same physical location and helps lower the overall deployment cost in such organizations.” he added.
Floating licenses are a wonderful cost-effective way of sharing software amongst multiple users in a networked environment and should be considered for any MAPublisher user environment in which more than one person uses MAPublisher or in which it is desired that more than one person has access to MAPublisher. Floating licenses are particularly useful for companies or academic labs with multiple users wherein not everyone uses the product at the same time. The MAPublisher Internet Floating License has all the features and benefits of a normal networked or floating license along with the added ability to remotely access it via the Internet.
MAPublisher is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand, MAPublisher leverages the superior graphics editing capabilities of these applications with the strength and power of GIS data. Full details and downloadable demo versions are available at www.avenza.com.
Features/Benefits of MAPublisher Internet Floating Licenses
All the features and functionality of MAPublisher 6 for Adobe Illustrator are included.
Access to the software via a remote Internet connection
Empower multiple users and/or multiple computers without the cost of purchasing an individual specific license for each user or computer.
Allows MAPublisher to be shared among an unlimited group of potential users. The actual MAPublisher client software can be installed on an unlimited number of computers and can be used on any combination of computers concurrently, up to a maximum set by the number of floating licenses purchased.
Supports Windows, Mac and Linux servers.
Supports mixed platform (Windows and Mac) client environments.
Special laptop option enables users to borrow a license and take it on the road even when disconnected from the network.
Additional client computers and/or users can be added at no extra cost.
More about MAPublisher 6 for Illustrator Floating Licenses
MAPublisher 6 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 10 and CS, MAPublisher 6 leverages the superior graphics capabilities of this design software package. Avenza also offers MAPublisher 5 for FreeHand – a suite of Xtras that adds mapmaking functionality to Macromedia Freehand 10 and MX.
MAPublisher floating licenses are available now directly from Avenza Systems or through the Avenza reseller network at prices ranging from US$1799. Internet-enable floating licenses start at US$1999. Users may also upgrade from fixed to floating licenses. Prices include 1 year of maintenance. Customers who purchase a MAPublisher floating license on or before May 31, 2005 will receive a free upgrade to the Internet-enabled version. Full details are available at www.avenza.com.
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. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.
For further information:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: info@avenza.com
Web: www.avenza.com
In a previous blog about Grids and Graticules, we quickly introduced one of the major features of the new Grid and Graticule tool. We’d like to share another major feature when creating grids: creating grids with an alternative coordinate system.
For example, the MAP View has a coordinate system “NAD 83 / UTM zone 17N” (in metres). You might want to make grid lines with the same coordinate system but in different units. You can do so by creating a custom coordinate system and then specifying the desired unit (US Foot, for this example), then creating a grid based on custom coordinate system. In this example, a grid with NAD83/UTM zone 17N (metres) coordinate system is created in the blue colour. Another grid with a NAD83/UTM zone 17N (USFoot) custom coordinate system is created with the orange colour.
Likewise, you can create multiple sets of measured grids with different coordinate systems in one MAP View (e.g. one set with NAD83 UTM, another with NAD27 UTM, another with some other local coordinate system) without the need to transform the MAP View.
A little known (but very useful) feature is the Attribute Tear-Off Panel which is located in the upper-right corner of the MAP Attribute panel (available in MAPublisher that’s compatible with Adobe Illustrator CS6 or higher). Use it to help you edit and view attributes even when they are deselected. It is very handy when used to compare attributes of different datasets.
Simply click the Attribute Tear-Off Panel icon to open another MAP Attribute panel. There are a few key difference between MAP Attribute panel and Tear-off panel:
1) The tear-off panel does not have any MAP Attribute functions (e.g. Join Tables, Find and Replace, Edit Schema, etc).
2) The tear-off panel view remains active and shows attributes even after features are deselected.
If your data values are updated within MAP Attribute panel, click the Attribute Tear-Off Panel again to update the values in the tear-off panel.
This blog post was written by Avenza reseller in The Netherlands, Hans van der Maarel of Red Geographics.
When you’re labeling point features (let’s say cities) in MAPublisher, using either Label Pro or Label Features, and you’re not placing a label for every single point, you’re left with the task of removing the points you haven’t labeled. This trick will have the text inherit the attribute structure of the points including a lat/long and guarantee that there are no orphan points.
Take for example the above map. I want to label the cities, but not all of them. I’ll decide as I go along which city will get labeled, and which will get dropped. In order to more easily remove the unlabeled cities I need to do some preparation. I’ll create two columns in the cities layer, X and Y, and assign the expression #MapX and #MapY to them, respectively. It’s important that you do this through the Apply Expression option in the Map Attribute panel.
This gives two attributes with the original coordinates of the city points.
Next, I’ll create a layer for the labels and put it into the MAP View as a text layer, indicating that I want to copy the attribute structure of the cities layer.
Now that all the preparatory work is done, I’ll start the labeling. I’m going to be using the Label Features option, but this will work with MAP LabelPro as well.
If I select one of the texts and look at its attributes, I’ll see that the attributes from the city point have been transferred to the text, including the X and Y attributes which hold the position of the original city point.
Next, I’ll remove the city points layer, select all city labels and use the Export Attributes option in the MAP Attributes panel:
This will export a comma-delimited text file (CSV). Make sure to check the “Field names on first line” option. It’s not exactly necessary, but it will make things a lot easier.
Import the CSV file back into MAPublisher. Make sure to specify that the projection of the data is the same as the existing MAP View. Once the data is imported, you can apply any existing Stylesheets that you had in place to style the cities, or create a new one. This way, you end up with just the symbols for the cities you’ve actually labeled.
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
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:
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:
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.
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>
Attribute Tear-Off Panel icon to open another MAP Attribute panel. There are a few key difference between MAP Attribute panel and Tear-off panel:
