3 replies to this topic

[GISRox]

After reading the old threads, I can't find much negative in the way of AI & MapPublisher. Both of the software packages will be relatively new to me. I have used AI a bit in the past, but far from being anything but a casual user.

Any additional thoughts or comments about potential pitfalls of this combination?

[Martin Gamache]

Mapublisher is not a GIS, that is the biggest dis-advantage. If you need to do data manipulation and analysis you will need a way to do that.

Personally I find Mapublisher to be a very expensive plug-in with fairly limited functionality compared to a full fledged GIS.

Additionally if you want to manipulate imagery you would need to get yet another plug-in for Photoshop. That is the greatest advantage that a piece of software like Manifold offers, you can export your work to illustrator if needed plus do all your data manipulation in one place.

mg

[GISRox]

I guess I should mention that I have a variety of diferent GIS packages at my disposal. What I want to do is take my rather basic looking maps and create a much higher quality product.

If I'm coming from a package or enviornment that doesn't support AI export, does MapPublisher help in the importing and keeping the spatial relationship of the objects? Right now, I can handle GeoTIFF, MIF, SHP, and other files without any problem, but getting them into AI with the right spatial relationship seems to be a limitation.

Perhaps Manifold is a better intermediate package to bridge the gap, from my diversity of file formats, to AI?

[ELeFevre]

Mapublisher is a great tool to have at your disposal if you already have a GIS for data processing. I use it on most of the projects I have worked on, but not all projects. It just depends on the map. Sometimes MP is overkill, sometimes it lacks functionality, most of the time it's extremely useful. I'm excited about 7.0!

I would spend some time working in your GIS and Adobe Illustrator and then decide whether or not you could use MP. You can also download a trial copy from Avenza.

And to answer your question...Mapublisher allows you to maintain and control the reference of common spatial files (.shp, .tab...etc), as well as text and images associated with the "map view" while working in Illustrator....which is great.

Which GIS packages do you have at your disposal? If you already have ArcGIS along with the extensions you need, I'm not sure Manifold is a necessary immediate purchase (even though Manifold is awesome). It depends on what you need to do. If you're working in no-frills ArcGIS Arcview or something similar, and you can't do what you need to, then get Manifold asap.