3 replies to this topic

[Navi Gator]

As a long standing cartographer (I even remember scribing and photo interpretation) for many years I have been creating maps in Illustrator.

I am more of broadly an information graphic designer these days and the prospect of combining data with maps intrigues me.

I am keen to explore how best to utilise Illustrator/Flash/Flex and data.

One tool to fast track this I have come across requires map information to be delivered as a .shp file. I have posted a question to the forum about this format and how I can achieve it.

Looking forward to browsing more of this site in the coming weeks.

[s hubbard]

hello navi gator >>

get yourself a trial version of ArcMap and play around with it. there's lots of tutorials on how to do (probably) what you need. ArcMap Eval

or we can help assist...maybe

welcome to CT

[frax]

There are many options - if your main concern is to be able to handle .shp files in Illustrator there are simple conversion tools that can convert these to CAD format (that Illustrator can open). There is an option of having limited GIS capabilities in Illustrator (MAPublisher). Then there are some open source GIS packages that would also be useful for this - QGis and uDig for instance.

And finally there are some cheap GIS software like Manifold and GlobalMapper.

I would start by playing with uDig and see how that feels, then look into Manifold.

If your main concern is just to be able to use shape files in Illustrator, then ArcGIS is likely overkill.

[MapMedia]

Hi Navigator - welcome. Would love to hear more about hand drawing maps
Am also doing some Flex based mapping myself - a fun platform if you don't mind the programming.