6 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

We've had discussions about this in the past:

Illustrator CS + MAPublisher seems to 'choke' on large maps, resulting in extremely long processing times or even refusing to open.

I've recently come across this in a project and found that in some extreme cases, deleting layers from the file and then saving it would actually make it grow in size.

The solution I found was to create a new, empty document and copy all elements over from the original document. If you're using MAPublisher 6.2, you'll have to recreate a Map View with the correct settings, but any legends can be used again, as long as the layer names remain the same.

[Claude]

Hi Hans,
I'll try anything that works doesn't this just strip all the tabular data from the objects on the map? I try to do that using the map columns palette or even pre-import on all the GIS data anyway. I guess if you're map is pretty much finished one could use this as a final press-ready kind of step but what if you realized you missed something and need to import more map data?
Claude

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hmmm...

Apparently my original post got lost

Yes, this will strip the MAPublisher attributes. I should have mentioned that this is a solution within a working environment where the majority of the visualisation is governed by the MAPublisher legends (and thus easily reproduced). The source document only contains the legend + map view, new data is imported and the legend is applied.

[frax]

how responsive are avenza to user feedback, if I may ask? is this something that users bring up with them?

[Hans van der Maarel]

The people at Avenza are pretty open to user feedback. However, keep in mind that they have to work within the limitations of Illustrator.

[Rick Dey]

Using the MAP Columns palette you can reduce a lot of the unneeded attributes and thereby the file size. I know that many of you are manipulating your data in a GIS app prior to importing so at that point you may want to remove all the unnecessary fields. Those working with supplied files in AI/MP can do this in the MAP Column palette by selecting the field name then using the options button or the trash icon to delete them.

[Claude]

and don't forget to simplify those lines. It's fairly easy to cut down a layers number of nodes by 50%...which can add up when you have 300,000 some nodes.