Cartographica 1.2

This major feature version contains a wide array of new features and enhancements to existing features.

Changes since 1.1.4

New Features

• Much more sophisticated handling of colors for creation of choropleth maps. The Color Palette window (previously the Color Map window) can now be dropped on any layer. When dropped on an analysis or image layer, the color palette for that layer is changed. When dropped on a feature layer, the fill colors for each feature set are set in order to the colors in the palette. When the Style window is visible, dropping on the style list will change the fill colors of each set of features. To change the stroke color instead, hold the option key while dropping on the style list. Colors can also be dragged from an existing layer into the palette by dragging the layer into the palette window, thus creating a new palette entry.
• Cartographica now supports editing, saving, and creating of palettes. Use the Color Palette window and the +/- buttons to add and remove palettes. To add a color to an existing palette, click on the grayed-out color box next to the existing colors.
• Text containing palette information (such as that which may be copied from the ColorBrewer site) that takes the form r,g,b;r,g,b;... can be pasted directly into the palette window, creating a new palette.
• New symbol selection mechanism for point features: now this is done through drag and drop from the symbol palette (or any image on your system). PDF, EPSF, and almost any type of graphic can be used to set the point marker. If Stroke is turned on, the software will replace the blacks in the image with the stroke color and the whites with the fill color (keeping all other colors the same as in their original and respecting the alpha channel).
• Geocoding can now be done in layers that are already loaded, as opposed to being done only during the import process. Configure the Geocoding Options for your mapset (or use the new Bing Geocoder defaults), then select the items to geocode and choose Geocode Selected from the Analysis menu. Or, if you have partially completed geocode data, select Geocode Uncoded to add geometry data to features which don't currently have geometry. If the CRS of the geocoder that you are using does not match the CRS of the layer, the points will be reprojected automatically.
• Support for Bing Maps. For all existing and new customers, we will be providing free use of Bing Maps geocoding and imagery services until your support contract runs out. After that time, you may renew support to continue using the Bing services. Bing maps provides fast, high resolution roads and imagery services. There are some limitations to the use of imagery from Bing for production purposes, so please note that you are not granted a license for republishing rights of this data.
• Support for Bing Geocoding services. Bing Geocoding works in many countries throughout the world and contains more up-to-date information than is available from many sources. It also requires no configuration to get started, just select your input data and geocode. This feature, like the Bing Maps services, is part of our ongoing support package. If you need to geocode using your own data (for example, historical information or if you have proprietary geocoding data), that option is still available through the Geocoder Options...
• Live Map support using OpenStreetMap, WMS, and OpenStreetMap-like servers. To add an OpenStreetMap or Bing live map to your mapset, choose Add Live Map... from the file menu and select the type of map and the server. If necessary, your Map Projection will be changed to match the live layer if the layer cannot be reasonably reprojected. To add a WMS map as a live map, follow the standard instructions for downloading a static copy of WMS data, but make sure the "Download as Static Imagery" is unchecked.
• WFS servers are supported for access to network-stored data, including auto-discovery of schemas (requires the server to support schema information) and determination of SRS, as well as reloading data from the server.
• Support for computed columns in any feature layer (this includes adding computed columns to WFS layers!). Unless there are other changes made that directly affect the data in the system, computed columns will not cause the data itself to be brought internal to the mapset, unless it already was. Computed columns can use any data from the other columns in the layer, plus a large number of built-in math functions (see list) and a growing list of built-in geometry functions. To add a computed column, add a column in the Layer Info window and click on Set Formula.. then drag columns from the column list in the lower half of the screen to the function area in the upper half (columns are color-coded by type). Columns (that are not locked) with geometry calculations will recompute when the geometry changes. If the functions are in map coordinates, they will also recompute when the map crs changes.
• Labels are now being handled in a completely new fashion, allowing multi-line, multi-value, multi-style labels. Font handling is done using the standard Macintosh font window and both text and column data can be inserted into the labels. Any selectable area may be styled for font, color, etc.
• Layer bounding-box invisibility is now supported. This makes it easier to use a single large background map for multiple mapsets without having to be constantly zoomed in. Load the image layer by reference (using standard Import Raster Data...) and then uncheck the item in the Layer menu for Include in Map Extent to make the bounding-box invisible. When this item is unchecked, the extent of the specified layer will only be used in calculating the map extent when it is the only layer visible. Otherwise, all layers whose Include in Map Extent item is checked will be used to calculate this, but those that do not will not.
• Projection management. Cartographica now provides for editing and manipulation of user-defined projections. To add a new projection, use the + or duplicate commands to duplicate an existing definition, or drop a prj, wkt, or text file containing information in WKT, ESRI WKT, or Proj4 format into the Project Map or Set Layer's Projection window.
• 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. Use the context menu (right-click or control-click) to change layer settings for the Map and the same for the Legend. In the case of the legend, any layers that are not visible in the associated Map object will not be visible in the legend. Use this, for example, to remove background data from the Legend when it is not important.
• Cartographica now has the ability to add and modify georeferencing information on imagery. This can be done non-destructively (in Cartographica's internal reference to the image) or can be used to write out the layer based on the new georeference, creating a georeferenced TIFF file by choosing Export Layer Image... from the File menu. Georeferencing can be done using the standard matrix transform or by adding ground control points (GCPs) to an image. To do either, select the image in the image layer and then choose the Edit Feature command from the Edit menu in order to bring up the georeferencing display. From this display, you may edit the transform (by entering numbers or using trackpad gestures or even gestures in the Wacom Bamboo). If you prefer to use GCPs, then change the tab to Ground Control Points and you will be able to add, modify and remove them, either through the list in the window or by using option-click to add new ground control points and drag them in the image window itself. Use the transparency control to see the underlying layers while you align your imagery. On the display, ground control points are shown as barbels, with the green point representing the point in the image and the red point representing the point in the coordinate space.

Feature Enhancements

• KML Point Images now exported based on selected point type. This is particularly important when you export for use on Google Maps, since it requires an external marker, unlike Google Earth. These are exported in the same directory as the KML file and has a derivative name (foo-icon.png when the kml file is foo.kml).
• KML Exporter now supports exporting imagery
• Multiple style sets may be edited at the same time by selecting them in the list, including the default style. Any changes to common controls will change all selected styles. For example, select a series of lines and make their widths the same or their colors the same.
• The Distribute command in the style editor now uses a Jenks distribution to distribute the values between the styles.
• Adobe Illustrator export revamp. The Adobe Illustrator exporter (now tested with CS5 as well as CS4) is significantly improved, including support for raster image output, use of font styles matching those in the document, the addition of legends for each layer (conveniently placed outside of the pasteboard, so you can just drag them in if you want them), segregation of text and objects to different layers, and much more sophisticated text layout for labels. When exporting lines with labels, the lines may either be labeled per-segment or per line. Polygons may be labeled either inside (centered within) or outside the polygon.
• Geocoding Options are saved per layer, so you can have multiple layers in the same document use different specific geocoding options (these would include the mapping of columns into address parts, additions of static data like state/province names, city names, or countries).
• Geocoder options are saved per mapset. These options apply to all layers within a mapset until changed. These settings determine whether server-based (Bing) geocoding or algorithm based internal geocoding is used.
• When geocoding data on import, geocoding settings are saved with the new layer to promote easy re-geocoding or coding of un-coded features.
• Tiger geocoder now will geocode addresses without Zip codes if Zip is specified in the geocoder preferences
• When resizing in Map Layout, holding the shift key constrains to any natural size ratio (useful mostly on maps), and holding the option key centers the resize on the original center point of the object
• Buffering now uses GCD to maximize multi-core processing power
• Buffers now can be made in either the Map CRS (now default) or the layer's
• Layers loaded by reference can now be reloaded from the Refresh Data item in the Layer menu
• Export Map format now saved in document. Will default to the last export type you used in this document, for new documents, it uses the last export type used on any document.
• Export Web Map now emits XHTML compliant HTML
• Add support for overviews in warping
• Bounding boxes now correctly updated during changes to projections on images. This includes dealing with bounding box changes that are due to changing the north orientation.
• Make bad poly detection during editing more robust
• Support for images with GCPs
• 64-bit internal math for all projected and unprojected values (previously was just original data, not projected data)
• Substantial speedup in projecting data
• Significant drawing speed-ups
• Dramatic drawing speed increase on points and non-stroked lines
• WMS Servers may now be browsed and have data retrieved if they require authentication (previously only open servers were supported)
• Add Fit Display to Georeferencing editor to immediately align the current image to the display
• Add Flip Image to Georeferencing editor to speed process of dealing with vertical alignment
• Hitting the space bar while georeferencing images now toggles between the last transparency value and completely transparent
• Dramatic speed increase for drawing new scalable symbols

User Interface Changes

• Style editor now has a single-view for default and derived styles. You can now edit attributes of multiple styles simultaneously.
• Style window is now sensitive to the style type that is being operated on- symbols don't show up in lines and polygons and the width slider is now appropriately labeled for each type
• Removed excess margin from MapLayout map view
• Color Palette window will now more accurately render palettes with variable opacity.
• Added support for multi-touch zoom in MapView and swipe to move forward and backward in extent
• Size changes in Map Layout now work better. Resizing "beyond" an anchored edge now allows you to extend in the opposite direction
• Deleted features now return to where they were in the list of features if the delete is undone
• When importing tabular data, only appropriate candidate layers are displayed (point layers for geocoding and coordinates, everything for join)
• MapLayout legend no longer displays errant caution triangle when there is space for all items (Used to do so if there wasn't room for one additional item)
• Context menu activation in Map Layout page now selects the item clicked on, reducing confusion
• Undo names for column changes correctly reflect the changes to be undone
• Geocoding now selects the correct default Layer when geocoding new data
• Removed Map and Data windows
• Better choice of representing layer when projecting a map by excluding those that can't be good representatives (unless they're the only ones there)
• Added editing help window to remind about using the option key to add points.
• Default Export Layer name is now the name of the selected layer
• Added password prompting to WFS layers
• Changing map projection now leaves the view in approximately the same place as prior to the projection change
• More specific error handling
• Map view no longer changes when you add/remove layers if your current view extent is still within the bounding box of the visible layers
• Much smoother updating of Tiled Map layers
• Solved zoom slowness when zooming in to a very high zoom level
• Bad geometry errors show up with an error message instead of just beeping
• Added fallback for field names coming from GDAL in inappropriate charsets
• WMS Server browser now does more work in the background, resulting in a more fluid user experience
• Layer selection information in layer stack pane now
• Slightly re-arrange main window to use a little more space
• Switch to newer style splitter bars
• Georeferencing editor no longer leaves the existing layer in the display when editing (it is still there for vectors)
• When Option and Command are held down during a feature edit an existing line is split at the point nearest the intersection.
• When no points are selected during a feature edit, if the mouse is clicked close to an existent line, that point is placed between the endpoints of the line segment it is clicked near
• When working with geotransformations in georeferencing, arrow keys now change the offset and option left and right scale down and up by 10% respectively

New File format support

• Added ESRI Personal Geodatabases now supported for import
• Added Autocad DXF format import and export
• Added GeoRSS (ATOM, GML, RSS, etc.) import and export
• Added Czech cadastral exchange data format import
• Added PCI Geomatics vector format import
• Added GPS Trackmaker import and export
• Added SQLite/SpatiaLite format import and export
• Added GeoJSON import and export
• Added EarthWatch/DigitalGlobe tiles import
• Added Rasterlite import
• Added Northwood/VerticalMapper Classified or Numeric grid import
• Added R Raster data import
• Added SAGA GIS Binary Grid
• GDAL updated to version 1.7.2 (including changes contributed by ClueTrust)

Internal

• Reading dates from Text files is now more reliable
• Integrate SpatiaLite 2.0

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed bug in ODBC that would cause an internal exception if the user connects to a database without any username
• Fixed bug where Column Layout Change name would override all other change names
• Made column key renaming work correctly. Now saves output and changes current name
• Fixed bug causing Web Map Export columns to be shown using the keys instead of the names
• Fixed bug MapDocuments-4/8 reported by Carol: raster images should only register "geometry" changes when they need to write out the image data, which should basically only be when you flatten them
• Fixed assert on reading empty BOOL fields
• Fixed encoding errors in strings that exactly matched certain length limits
• Fixed 64-bit errors in Timex import code
• Fixed crash in Magellan plug-in when reading headers from files that can't be read
• Fixed bug which would cause USGS topo imagery not to save after being retrieved from terraserver
• Fixed for crash when downloading USGS Topo images from Terraserver
• Fixed bugs in matching numeric types against single value tests in styles
• Fixed bug in matching date types against single value tests in styles
• Fixed copy order problem in MapEntity mutableCopyWithZone: that would assert when copying image entities
• Updated handling of CRS so that when imagery is imported without a CRS, it isn't invisible.
• Fixed bug in warp operation changes - wrong offset to multi-plane
• Fixed GDAL importer to create CW polygons and to only pass information on CRS if its actually there
• Fixed importing data with no geospatial coordinates
• Fixed a bug in automatic text field determination which would result in false positives for dates that had 2 separators but not 3 sets of digits or numbers that had sign characters in the middle of them.
• Fixed bug in Layer code which could cause problems drawing a layer while changing it
• Fixed Projection Panel resize
• Fixed preview bug in Map Projection window that was triggered when the relative size of the display area remained the same.
• Fixed track name padding error which could cause memory overwrite and crash when uploading to some Garmin devices
• Fixed crash bug in E00 parser when there's a bad polygon definition
• Bing Geocoder now outputs compatible detail columns
• Geocoding options now correctly reflect existence of result columns
• Geocoding results columns now correctly added
• Text file reading now skips leading spaces when the field isn't in quotes
• Tiger geocoder now correctly computes location when the street layer is in one projection and the map in another
• Tiger geocoder now outputs final address, method and quality information
• Centroid formula support for non-polygons
• Clicking in a polygon or on a line will now select the entire feature that is being edited
• Fixed an exception in the image decoder (which is silently ignored without effect)
• Fixed bug in color palette dragging that could result in an exception when there are different numbers of colors in the palette than there are sub-styles in a style
• Fixed bug in resizing Layer Style window that caused items to overlap
• Fixed bug where deleting manually in a map view would possibly delete the wrong selection
• Fixed bug which could result in stopping Bing geocoding if any of the address fields are pure number fields.
• Fixed crashing bug in Distribute when distributing calculated numerical values that were stuck in a string field.
• Fixed crashing bug in GPX importer when a track has no points
• Fixed handling of multiple selection in label handling for Style sets
• Fixed problem which resends crash reports on the launch after a successful statistics send.
• GCP HUD now updates immediately
• Geometry type errors now show up when setting formulas
• More warnings added for python expressions in Formulas
• Projection panel now maintains selections when switching from tree to list and back
• Ramp/Step icons added to palette window
• Replaced palettes remain at the same location
• Fixed link error in Cartographica help
• Fixed bug importing using joins on 32-bit machines which would result in a join failure on numeric keys
• Fixed bug in geocoder/table importer that would try and re-project data when
• Fixed bug in importing 200+ data items from tables that could cause crash or stall
• Fixed crashing bug in bbox function
• Field colors are now consistent between the upper and lower panes
• Fixed computed field sheet resizing bounds
• Fixed potential crashing bug in main map window when WMS Server returns invalid data (such as HTML) instead of image
• Fixed bug in reading files that could result in erratic behavior when opening many files or mapsets with a large number of component files
• Column formats are now updated correctly when changing between numerical and string formats. Also solves a problem that could occur with sort information.
• Columns no longer unexpectedly "move" when editing them
• Dragging from the drag handle in the MapView window (the little blue dot in the lower right hand corner) now drops a TIFF file on 10.6's finder like it used to under 10.5
• Field names are now copyable to non-Cartographica programs
• Fixed bug in the betas that would cause coordinate columns to be added with the wrong names.
• Fixed bug that occurs when merging raster layers which will cause a crash later
• Fixed bug in KML output that would cause some styles to not create correctly if they weren't named
• KML styles now more precise
• Locked columns now prevent editing
• Fixed bug introduced in 315 which caused the ID field not to show up on newly imported layers until after they've been clicked away from
• Fixed bug which would result in deleted columns remaining in the Data View until the next time the layer is selected
• Fixed a bug that could cause it to be impossible to drag a control point
• Fixed a bug that made it possible to create a control point outside of the actual image
• Fixed bug which resulted in the label fields not showing when there was no value column selected
• Fixed bug which would prevent features from being redrawn when geometry changes were undone and redone
• Fixed bug which could cause a crash when buffering multi-part polygons using the base coordinate system
• Fixed bug which would cause layer updates to be missed (such as changing styles) after printing, editing, or certain other changes
• Fixed exception when loading pictures if none are successfully loaded
• Fixed exception when deleting all values from the buffer sheet
• Default to meters when using proj4 projections that have default units (fixes a unit display problem).
• Fixed undo/redo text for adding/removing style to/from a set
• Fixed a bug which could cause MapInfo TAB files to load zero-length fields
• Fixed bug which caused the wrong preview to be shown in the Style Set editor when a style was deleted
• Fixed undo bug in style set editor that caused undoing deletion not to work
• Real data coming from GDAL is now coerced to floating point if it doesn't have specific formatting information

Scripting

• Added support for creating features using WKT strings in AppleScript
• Added support for CRS viewing in AppleScript
• Added support for Erase command in scripting
• Added support for layer and feature selection in AppleScript
• Added support for re-projecting layers in AppleScript
• Added scripting support for the Union overlay command
• Added support for changing and viewing labels via AppleScript
• Added support for Identify overlay function to AppleScript
• AppleScript now has access to CRS information for setting and reading
• AppleScript now shows map documents as such and map layout documents as such
• AppleScript now shows map windows as such and map layout windows as such
• AppleScript version of the overlay Update command is now available
• Be aware that although changing the display name in the Layers window will automatically change the column's data name (under most circumstances), that changing both via script will require separate parameter changes.
• Buffer scripting now takes a list of features or a layer instead of requiring both to be present in order to buffer just a selection of features
• Clip layer command is now available
• CRS may now be created in AppleScript using 'make new coordinate reference system with properties {epsgCode: code}'
• Find Differences Overlay command is now available
• Intersection command is now available
• Limited scripting control of Map Layout windows is now available
• Switch to using UUID for finding layers by default in a document. This helps for changing the name or documents that have more than one layer with the same name, which previously were unaddressable.
• Update scripting dictionary for most recent standard cocoa capabilities

Documentation Changes

Known issues

Version 1.2 has the following known issues:

• WFS access is read only. No changes are saved to the server.
• WFS client retrieves too much data in some queries.

Notices