Cartographica has for a long time supported geocoding photos based either on tracks or based on data inside of the photos themselves. For most of that time, we have supported doing this for both files on disk and images that are stored inside of Apple's iPhoto application. With recent versions of OS X (basically since 10.8.5 or so), Apple has been providing access to photos in both iPhoto and Aperture through the file selection or Open dialog as well by way of the Media item in the sidebar on the left. Since the introduction of that feature, we …

Today we released version 1.2.2 of Cartographica, and one of the features we think people are going to find really useful is the ability to use any character from any font available on your Mac as a symbol on a map. We debuted a new symbol technology in 1.2 that made use of Drag and Drop and introduced our new Symbol palette. Rick gave some great instructions in his article, Introducing 1.2: Color and Palette Management] For 1.2.2 we've upped the ante again, and are now providing support for just about any font character …

Exporting maps to Adobe Illustrator gives you the ability to enhance GIS output for presentation and publication. Cartographica 1.2 offers new enhanced features that give more specificity in what is exported to Adobe Illustrator from Cartographica. The new features give you the ability to choose line segment labels, to determine how polygons will be labeled, and it gives you the choice to export data along with the map. The segment labels option gives you choice in labeling lines with multiple segments. You can choose to label each line segment of label only the first segment. Also you are able …

A new feature of Cartographica 1.2 is layer bounding-box invisibility. This makes it easier to use a single large background map for multiple mapsets without having to be constantly zoomed in. Given that Cartographica now has the ability to import live maps you will find that this tool is very useful because it allows more flexibility with zoom commands when working with a large background map such as a Live Bing map. When a raster file is imported into Cartographica it will be displayed at its full extent. However when data are added for a specific location the map …

A great feature of Cartographica is the ability to add features to a map. This gives you the ability to quickly create new layers and add information to already existing layers. In conjunction with Cartographica's table tools (add coordinate, length, and area columns) the Add Feature option allows you to quickly georeference new layers, and it also can provide valuable information about the space used by the layer you created. These bits of information are important so that you can verify that the layer you created is a valid representation of the object being represented. The Add Feature option is …

Cartographica has been able to export to KML since it first shipped. Cartographica 1.2 has an enhanced KML exporter that makes it even easier to make your maps shine using Google Earth, Google Maps, and other products that use KML. The software now exports all raster and analysis layers, as well as the precise point types that you use in your maps in Cartographica (as opposed to using the default pushpins that are part of Google Earth's repertoire). To export a layer file to KML follow the steps below. First design a mapset that you want to export into …

Cartographica 1.2 offers new enhanced map layout and design capabilities with improved functionality and workflow.A new feature of 1.2 is the new layer control in Map Layout windows. Now, the visible layers in both Map objects and Legend objects may be edited separately from their original maps. This gives you the freedom to choose which layers displayed on your map will be shown in the design of final map output. Additionally, there were a couple of functionality improvement from previous versions. Specifically, the Map Layout legend no longer displays errant caution triangle when there is space for …

Cartographica supports many projection systems and now support the ability to add your own unique projection system to the program. The ability to add your own projection allows you to very accurately represent data on a map, which make for more accurate geospatial analysis. Cartographica has supported many projection systems in the past and the ability to add your own projection system gives Cartographica to accurately project data anywhere in the world. The new projection management features allow you to maintain custom projections in an group labeled User Defined Projections. This group contains all of the projections that you have …

A new feature of Cartographica 1.2 is the ability to re-geocode data that are already added to a map. This new option allows for additional information to be added to a dataset that describes the address used to match the point, a score indicating how accurate the geocoding process was, and a column that describes the source data used for geocoding. These pieces of information are important for keeping track of what went on during geocoding process, which allows for more accurate reporting of analysis results and procedures. Knowing how accurate the geocoding process was along with the specifics …

New to Cartographica 1.2 is the ability to compute columns in a data set (this includes adding computed columns to WFS layers!). Computed columns give users the ability to quickly create new variables that incorporate information from other data fields in the same data set. This allows users to quickly create rates, ratios, and proportions by using a simple drag and drop method. Cartographica currently supports a large number of basic math and geometric functions. See Below for the Step to Create Computed Columns The example below will calculate the number of retail sites per 1000 residents in Block …

Cartographica 1.2 offers several new geocoding features that will enhance user's ability to effectively geocode several forms of spatial data. Some of the new geocoding features include the ability to geocode with Bing, the ability to geocode layers that have already been imported, and the ability add spatial information to data sets that are incomplete, or not spatially defined. Cartographica can geocode both address and coordinate data and has the ability to add spatial information such as X and Y coordinates to layers that are not georeferenced. Some of the New Features of Geocoding in Cartographica! Geocoding can now …

Cartographica has had the ability to geocode address and coordinate data for a long time now. However, the ability to geocode using Bing is a new feature of Cartographica 1.2. Past geocoding methods in Cartographica have focused on the use of either Census Street Files (Tiger/Line Files) or coordinate data already stored in a data set. Bing offers more up-to-date access to street and address data through live access over the internet, which provides more accurate geocoding, especially for data that were collected in recent time. Using the Bing geocoder also means access to geocoding information in a …

A new feature of Cartographica 1.2 is the ability to add Live Maps to documents. Cartographica has the ability to directly use data from Bing, OpenStreetMap, and or any OGC-compliant Web Map Server. Each of these data sources can be displayed in Cartographica, and additional layers can be added for analysis. The advantages of directly adding Live Maps and WMS data are limitless, but the largest is the convenience of not having to dig around for a base map. These maps provide high resolution imagery of nearly every location on Earth, and provide great opportunities for research and exploration …

Version 1.2 of Cartographica has a new way of selecting symbols that allows the use of just about any image or drawing as a symbol, either from the built-in symbol browser, or from another source such as the internet. This is really handy as essentially any object that has an Identifiable symbol can be found on the internet and used (keeping in mind copyright ownership of the symbols). Symbol selection is now done through a drop zone inside of the Layer Styles window, located at the bottom of the window, to the right of the preview. When you click …

Cartographica 1.2 offers a new user interface for creating choropleth maps, which includes more advanced color palette options and a new Jenks classification for displaying categories of data on your map. This post highlights the new process for creating choropleth maps and talks about some of the advantages of the new user interface. In order to create a choropleth map follow the steps listed below... In the example, we are using data collected from the Washington D.C. GIS Data Catalogue, which includes city block groups with 2000 census data on demographic characteristics. In the example we are going …

A new feature of Cartographica 1.2 is the new color and palette management system. The system was complex and effective before, and now it has even more functionality! In previous versions users had to manually select color schemes from several color palate options in order to create choropleth maps, but now users have access to both pre-defined and user created color palettes. The new Color Palette Window (previously the Color Map Window) is great because it not only allows new color schemes to be created, but users can now simply drag and drop the colors directly on any layer …

Since Cartographica originally shipped, it has been easy to add labels to features. However, the labels haven't always been powerful. With 1.2, we're changing that. Labels can now contain more information with better controls of font and style. Here we give you a rundown on what you can look forward to in the beta and release of 1.2. Cartographica 1.2 contains quite a few changes to the style editor, and one of the largest is the new label editor. In previous versions, you could choose a label field by selecting it from a pop-up menu and the …