It started out as an experiment, because the iPhone and the iPad were relatively new. “Eventually,” says Florence, “we started to realize that mobile was a viable platform and that the way that maps were being used was transitioning from paper to web to mobile.” The company developed an app that allowed geospatial PDF files to be used on a mobile platform. In 2010, after Adobe had introduced the geospatial specification for PDF files, Avenza announced that it would support the ability to export geospatial PDF documents from any supported spatial image source or scanned map document.Īvenza Maps is used mostly to display specialized maps, such as these nautical and aviation charts. It added the ability to create Flash files and HTML 5. Over the years, Avenza added features and tools to both products and eventually began to support web-based maps in addition to printed ones. MAPublisher evolved into Avenza’s Photoshop product that enabled users to import raster files–especially satellite and aerial photography–into Adobe Photoshop and manipulate them in an image-editing environment. ![]() Geological Survey, and the Department of Defense.” ![]() “That led us to have a great customer base,” says Florence, “like National Geographic, the New York Times, the U.S. It allowed users to import GIS data–such as shapefiles, MapInfo files, e00, and DXF, with all their vertices, typologies, attributes, etc.–into a graphics environment, such as Adobe or Macromedia, thereby eliminating the need to trace and re-draw a map. To improve this process, Avenza created its flagship product, MAPublisher. “People would use ArcView to make a map based on some analysis,” Florence recalls, “then output it as a JPEG, open it in a product such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or Macromedia Freehand, and then trace it in order to re-vectorize it so that they could then use the graphics tools that they were using to actually make a good map that they could print, publish, reproduce, etc.” This is because GIS programs worked well as analysis and data-management tools but were inefficient and unreliable when it came to actually creating maps. In the 1990s, people who used such GIS products as MapInfo and ArcView 3.2 would then switch to graphic software to produce their maps. ![]() Its products dealt with “all the creative aspects of mapping,” says Ted Florence, the company’s president, an engineer who has been involved in mapping and GIS for 20 years. Until recently, Avenza produced only cartography and map-publishing software for desktop computers. Users can download maps from Avenza’s very large map library or create their own and open them in the application. Bureau of Land Management.Īvenza Maps, a mobile application by Avenza Systems, makes it easy for users to display on a mobile device the most appropriate map for their particular application while also taking advantage of the device’s GPS receiver to mark their position on the map.
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