In our past blog postings, we’ve profiled a number of GIS companies offering many types and kinds of services and products to their customers. For example, many of them have tools, such as satellites, which can take the most robust pictures of specific landmarks with the greatest of clarity. Other business entities make use of UAV machinery to fly a few miles above the clouds to capture even more remote and desolate images. Others offer Cloud-based services which can host greatly detailed maps and other landmark based photographs.
However, there is another vendor out there, known as Avenza Systems, Inc., which fits into a very specific niche of the GIS market. They use Adobe software to help create maps and other landmark based images. To some degree or another, we all have heard of Adobe Corporation. They create very unique and very powerful software to create images, videos, and even sound. Avenza has taken advantage of this by incorporating the various Adobe software programs into their product line, which includes:
- MAPublisher for Adobe Illustrator. This package makes use of the Adobe Illustrator to help bridge the gap between cartography and graphic design.
- Geographic Imager. This product makes use of the well-known Adobe Photoshop to help create a very powerful spatial imagery tool.
- MAPdata. This is a cumulative library of geographic datasets.
In this regard, it was announced that the latest version of MAPublisher has been released. MAPublisher 9.6 is a brand new upgrade, that now takes advantage of the full compatibility of the Adobe Creative Cloud 2015. Most importantly, though, geographic images can now be converted into rich and very high-quality PDF files.
According to Ted Florence, the president of Avenza, “We’re delighted to release MAPublisher 9.6 to ensure our users are using the latest map making tools with the newest features of Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud 2015 . . . these map packages can be loaded directly into the app by anybody wanting to use custom maps. Map publishers can easily upload map packages directly to the map store from Adobe Illustrator, making it easier to publish and sell maps, and has become a complete platform that benefits both map users and makers alike.” (SOURCE: https://www.directionsmag.com/pressrelease/6384).
GeoTel is a telecommunications research and GIS mapping firm that researches and provides telecom datasets for more than 5,500 cities in the United States and worldwide. GeoTel’s expertise includes specialists in economic geography, geospatial engineering, web GIS, and telecommunications GIS Data infrastructure.
