2 replies to this topic

[David Medeiros]

Anyone here have experience moving line-work out of GeoMedia into Illustrator? Any tips on how to optimize the process?

I'm working on a map book conversion taking feature data from GM (grid by grid) and importing it into an illustrator template to be cleaned up before exporting as PDF. GM has terrible export options, in fact it has no PDF export so I have to print to PDF before opening in Illustrator. The issue is there seems to be something about the PDFs out of GM that makes them super clunky, slow to work with and prone to crash Illy.

They're not large areas or huge numbers of features. The PDF is about 119kb. I have noticed a few things that probably slow it down some: the GM PDF adds a large number of clipping masks, almost every object, any type that is not straight and horizontal gets cut up into individual letter paths, dramatically increasing the number of type features. Still, these are smallish 11x14 maps at around 1" to 500' I think. I run MUCH larger files in Illy with no slow down issues.

[Dennis McClendon]

Might be worth a try to try the PDF Optimizer tool in Acrobat on the files before opening them, to see if that will correct some of the inefficient coding.

[David Medeiros]

Might be worth a try to try the PDF Optimizer tool in Acrobat on the files before opening them, to see if that will correct some of the inefficient coding.

It actually makes the PDF larger! Only by a little though. It might be my setting choices but since there are no rasters or transparencies there is not much to optimize.

I did find a neat little tool made by TerraGo for GeoMedia. Its a "publisher" plug in that among other things converts RGB to CMYK and outputs your layout window to GeoPDF, and hey it only costs a whopping $2700! I don't understand how GM can neglect its export function to this extent. There are no built in options for any format that would allow cross application use of the linework (no EPS, AI SVG PDF DXF, nothing). Your choices when making a map from GM are 1) limit yourself to the built in GM map layout function (have fun with that, try not make a mess as you repeatedly hit your head on the edge of the desk) 2) use a PDF print diver to get a funky, bloated Illustrator crashing PDF to work on or 3) shell out $2700!!! for a PDF plugin.

For any one who is unfortunate enough to have this same issue here is what we have found as a usable workaround: Publish your GM workspace via GM Web Publisher, open the workspace online, right click the map frame and "save as SVG". Open the SVG in AI, remove the strange little layer called "gwmbg" (empty layer that prevents you resizing or moving any of the line work), restyle as needed and save as an AI file. The resulting file works as expected in AI and is far more stable than the PDF print export from GM.