Avenza Systems’ MAPublisher 6.2 is a GIS environment that works as a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator CS2 (and other vector drawing applications like Freehand). MAPublisher focuses on the map graphics first with the right GIS data management tools to facilitate the map rpoduction process.
MAPublisher’s approach is in direct contrast with most GIS software that are designed and written for the analysis of data, with desktop publishing of map data coming second. This means that as powerful as most GIS systems are for analysis, they were not designed for cartographic or publication quality mapping. Cartographers on the other hand, need tools such as Bezier curves and CMYk colour separation for publication quality output. MAPublisher provides just that.
I tested MAPublisher as an Adobe Illustrator CS2 plug-in. The plug-in is installed in its own folder outside of the Illustrator plug-ins folder, with an alias inside that folder pointing to the MAPublisher folder. As the MAPublisher plug-in by itself is only one element of a system including some other files as well, this is nice and clean. If anything bad happens as a result of the plug-in, you just have to remove one alias, and you’re done.
When MAPublisher is installed, the Illustrator CS2 toolbar will have a couple of additional tools, and the Illustrator Filter and Tools menus will have a bunch of additional menu selections to choose from. MAPublisher is based on data import and automatic boundary generation—that’s my way of putting it by lack of a better terminology. What happens is that MAPublisher imports a data file that can hold data to describe a map’s outline, its geographical locations, legend information, etc.
What happens then is that MAPublisher will draw the map for you, is the data describes the map outline, or that it will load data points in its internal database which you can select from by using the palettes and tables MAPublisher provides. All this happens inside the Illustrator environment, and most the features directly result in the creation of vector lines and surfaces.
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Changing Your Mind
The cartographer can concentrate on the drawing process, provided he or she keeps in mind that everything that is drawn outside of MAPublisher’s “proprietary” layers is not related to the GIS data in its database. In other words, drawing cartographic elements must be done using MAPublisher’s tools. This, however, does not hinder or restrict the cartographer in any way.
MAPublisher has all the power you need to create the best looking maps in true desktop publishing fashion. The only restriction is in the integration between the data and the Illustrator layers, that you must be aware of. MAPublisher layers are in a sense proprietary, as they contain the GIS data that determines where elements must be drawn in relation to the map coordinates.
Maintaining the link between data and elements is very easily done, because each layer is created in relation to the import of a data file. For example, a country map’s outline will be drawn on one layer, while the map’s roads will be drawn on another layer, and its hotels and parking lots on yet another layer.
The elements themselves can then be styled and formatted using Illustrator’s own tools. For example, city names can have a bullet next to them with the bullet size changing in relation to the number of inhabitants. The bullet can be defined using Illustrator’s Styles and Symbols palettes. The size will be defined using MAPublisher tools.
Conclusion
What happens when you change your mind about the size of the paper your map will be printed on? Or what happens when the customer originally asked for a Mercator projection, but now wants another one? The answer is that you reproject your map using MAPublisher’s reprojection tool, or that you drag and drop layers onto a reprojection layer.
This process will automatically reproject the whole map, but there’s a price to pay. MAPublisher uses 64-bit precision internally, while Illustrator is a 32-bit program. The reprojection process will re-map points and elements in 64 bit, but will have to redraw in 32 bit, resulting in some loss of accuracy. Some precision will be lost, but the fact that you can do it so easily is a great benefit that outweighs the disadvantage.
New in MAPublisher 6.2 is MAPublisher Stylesheets. These are nowhere related to cascading stylesheets, but rather a combination of palettes and Illustrator styles and symbols. The process is easy. Let’s say you want to create your own symbols for hotels, restaurants and parking lots. What you do, is you draw your symbols in the correct sizes and colours on a separate Illustrator layer, and save them as Symbols and the styles you want to apply to them as Styles.
Then go back to the appropriate MAPublisher layer, and open the MAPublisher Stylesheet palette. Now for the elements on the layer, you can select data points and load the appropriate symbols and styles from a table interface. The result is that your legend elements are applied in a one-to-one ratio.
If you want more control over legend elements, you can still use the legend info dialogue window that already existed in previous versions. This window gives you more power; in fact, it gives you the power to customise all legend elements using Boolean operators and expressions.
With over two dozen file formats available for importing data and half a dozen file formats to export into, MAPublisher is a robust cartography tool as well as a GIS. The results of MAPublisher can be astonishingly beautiful and extremely informative. Avenza has many example of maps produced with MAPublisher.
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MAPublisher 6.2 is a GIS tool for desktop publishers and a cartography tool for those who must be able to publish accurate maps. Its integration with Illustrator is tight and seamless. Desktop publishers will find cartography having some learning curve because the foundation for the illustrative work is tabular data.
Cartographers, however, will find MAPublisher intuitive to use and powerful enough to create even the most complex of maps with an astonishing level of detail.
