18 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

I just put some of the ideas in this thread into a summary slide. If I've left anything out let me know! Thanks.

Maybe put "Illustrator/MAPublisher" rather than "Illustrator -> MAPublisher", since it's kind of a seamless combination.

Other than that, I prefer to think of this in terms of "Data" -> "Processing" -> "Visualisation". Under processing would be ArcMap, Global Mapper, FME and other GIS tools. Under visualisation would be ArcMap again, Illustrator with or without MAPublisher and so on.

[ajay]

I just put some of the ideas in this thread into a summary slide. If I've left anything out let me know! Thanks.

why even bother to use multiple systems for a job of making excellent maps? Use axpand, the end-to-end GIS Cartography system. You can install axpand in-house or use it over the Internet as axpand on Demand Software as a Service that supports Windows, MacOS and Linux.

[sitesatlas]

I just put some of the ideas in this thread into a summary slide. If I've left anything out let me know! Thanks.

For what it's worth, I start with Manifold (and sometimes Global Mapper) first to prep and clip the data, then I export the layers and import them into Illustrator/MAPublisher. I generally try to avoid Manifold's AI export -- not only are the coordinates lost, but there are some clipping problems and other issues.

[natcase]

Late to the discussion. In the workflow diagram, you can leave ArcMap out, and use AI/MaPublisher to import and process data. I do this a lot with small, fast jobs or with quick layout questions (e.g. what scale do we get if we cover this county with this sheet size).

You should distinguish between processes where data is exported from Arc and processes where ungeoreferenced artwork is exported from Arc. Both can work, but the net workflow is quite different, even mutually exclusive.

In an AI-centric production process, I find exporting AI files out of Arc works best if you start dealing with file-size issues (big sheets with lots of labels), and using a full-MaPublisher approach works better if the files are comparatively small and label-light.