MAPublisher

I am very happy with the software, it works well.

Kommentare: It allows for accurate mapping with the full design capabilities of Illustrator.

Vorteile:

The ability to work with georeferenced data directly inside Illustrator is great. It has many useful tools and saves me a lot of time by giving me much more freedom than a standard GIS system for creating visually pleasing maps. It has basic data processing capabilities for selecting, editing and adding attributes including creating legends and map grids.

Nachteile:

Some aspects of the current system can be a bit clunky or limiting but they are improving with each version. Scalebars, map grids and map themes are missing things I would find useful. Map Themes have an export option but not an import option. Scalebars and grids may need to be expanded (breaking the spatial link) to change the placement of the labels to something not available in the options.

Great for importing all sorts of GIS map data into Illustrator, complete with attributes!

Kommentare: This is my work-horse software for making maps every day. It lets me import all sorts of map data, with attributes, and then process the features using those attributes. After years of using Arc and other software this meets my needs almost exactly.

Vorteile:

Ability to read all sorts of GIS data formats, and match them together. Crop on import from GeoDatabase is a huge time saver - as is the crop function tool for other uses. Labeling options are fairly robust (using the optional LabelPro module). It is clear that this software is designed by and for real map makers, and they have added many very useful features over the years. When I first started using it (after years of using Arc products - and all sorts of in-house tricks to get decent productivity using it), it felt like someone had designed MAPublisher just for me!

Nachteile:

Occasionally it freezes on me, so I have learned to save frequently and even quit Illustrator before doing big complex tasks such as joining features by attribute (for example road segments by road name), or big labeling tasks (I'm talking about placing 5,000+ street names!). I took their local 2 day training course, and would give that about 1 star... they just went through the product manual and exercises page by page. For example they never really explain why you might want to set up a layer for labels before running the labeling module (so that you can make those labels 'obstacles' to other label placement), or how many of the tools interact. But their tech support is very responsive, always getting back to me quickly and listening to suggestions.

Wish they had a tiered pricing structure for small biz / limited use

Vorteile:

Cool product that allows you to make really nice looking maps. Love the integration with Adobe.

Nachteile:

Hard to learn from a design-perspective. I'm using this for a single non-profit client as a consultant and the pricing structure does not work for me. The hefty up-front price plus yearly maintenance costs (which are hidden well before you buy and realize you need them) eat up way too much budget for my non-profit clients. Couldn't there be a tiered structure for someone who only needs to create/update 1-2 maps per year? A shame given how useful this could be for small operations.

I can quickly make a professional map for an array of applications in education.

Kommentare: Making beautiful maps without having to export from ArcGIS. Having everything georeferenced (including old files that were scanned in) is an incredible selling point.

Vorteile:

Its compatibility with a wide array of geospatial files types is a huge plus. Most commonly .shp files, but I find that I will often quickly whip up an excel spreadsheet to plot various cities or other POIs just because the software makes it easy to import CSVs. Many of the tools I used in ArcGIS are available (spatial selection, attribute selection, etc) so it's nice that there isn't a learning curve there. Last but not least, I love how easy it is to theme and label maps with the built-in tools based on attributes or other metadata.

Nachteile:

Discoverability and learning. Sometimes it's difficult to get a comprehensive answer from a Google search on how to perform a task (I remember specifically with the georeferencing tool). This might not be fair, but I am stiff baffled why MAPublisher cant work with image files like it does with vector data (in the same vein as Geographic Imager). I'd pay more for a more comprehensive product if it had this capability built-in (though maybe not any more what geographic imager costs). I suspect there might be technical limitations to this, even though MAPublisher recognizes image files.

I use MAPublisher to create clean, detailed maps for environmental documents.

Kommentare: I'm able to create maps as detailed as those created by our GIS team, but they're cleaner and more user-friendly than what our GIS team can make. Project managers often come to me for their maps (made using MAPublisher) instead of the GIS team, because they know my maps will look better.

Vorteile:

Overall, I enjoy using MAPublisher very much. It allows me to do mapping that I can hardly imagine being able to do otherwise. It's a wonderful tool! What I like most is being able to import and manipulate very detailed GIS data and then having the unlimited design freedom of Adobe Illustrator.

Nachteile:

A couple of minor quirks in the user interface I find annoying: 1) Layer Options Panel: When MAPublisher is installed, and when I create a new layer in Illustrator or modify the layer options (name, color) of an existing layer (MAP layer or not), I will click Okay to save the options, then the layer options panel appears a 2nd time and I have to click Okay again on the layer properties for the panel to go away. 2) Unwanted shift to Legend layer: When I have a legend layer in the file (typically for a scale bar), and when I'm working on some other part of the graphic (either on a MAP layer or a non-MAP layer), if I do something that causes an error, the selected layer will often shift to the legend layer, which is bothersome. That layer is usually locked once I have created the scale bar, but the active layer will occasionally move to the legend (scale bar) layer without my telling it to do so.