LUP Plotting Guide
Intergraph Canada Ltd.
Landscape Unit Plotting with GeoMedia 4.0
Users Guide
Version 4.0
August 2000
Developed by
Intergraph Canada Ltd.
Table of Contents:
1 Setting up the Map Window 3
1.1 Remove White Space 3
2 Check Plots, simple plotting directly from the Map Window 4
3 Cartographic Plotting from the Layout Window 5
3.1 In the Map Window 5
3.2 In the Layout Window 5
3.3 The LUP legend template (LUP Plot Layout.glt) 6
3.3.1 Legend Header 7
3.3.2 BEC Legend 7
3.3.3 Legend Footer 8
3.3.4 Other Legend Elements 8
3.4 Editing Text in the Layout Window 8
3.5 Inserting Map Window graphics into the Layout Window 10
3.6 Adjust and position the Frames 12
3.6.1 Map Frame 12
3.6.2 North Arrow 13
3.6.3 Scale Bar 13
4 Saving Your Work 14
4.1 Saving Plot Layout 14
5 When You Encounter Problems 14
6 Final Output 14
6.1 Print Settings 16
7 Appendix A: What to do if the plot does not fit the paper 17
7.1 Plotting on a sheet larger than E-size 17
7.1.1 Print Server Setup 17
7.1.2 Map Layout Setup 17
1 Setting up the Map Window
GeoMedia 4.0 has new functionality for plotting called the Layout Window, but as with GeoMedia 3.0 the user can still very simply plot the map window contents. The basis for any plotting still remains setting up a map window’s legend using the feature classes, queries, thematic legend entries, and images you would like to plot. Using each legend entry’s style dialogue you can specify colour, line style etc. for you plot:
· Setup the map legend as you like – WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
· Add North Arrow and Scale Bar, if they don’t exist, and adjust their properties.
· Rotate the map display if necessary to better fit to a rectangular sheet View->Display Properties
· Remove any unnecessary white space.
1.1 Remove White Space
When you plot a map window, the plot contains not only the displayed features, but also any area around the map features (White Space). You should therefore close the map window around the data to avoid this white space.
· Use View > Fit All once
· Then use View > Pan to position the data in the upper left-hand corner. You will be left with some white space on the right and bottom of the map window.
· Now resize the Map Window by moving the upper right-hand corner. This lets you shrink the map window to the left and down. By using the upper right-hand corner, you can remove all white space in one operation. Shrinking the map window boundary to the left closes in on the map features to the left reducing any white space remaining on the right side. Shrinking the map window down pushes the map contents down until there is no remaining white space at the bottom.
2 Check Plots, simple plotting directly from the Map Window
After you have finished creating the desired legend and removed unnecessary white space from the map window you can quickly create a simple plot from GeoMedia’s File menu:
· File -> Page Setup allows you to pick the printer, paper format, and plot scale:
· File -> Print will now give us a 1:50,000 scaled plot of the Map Window shown above. The map window is plotted “as is” including the legend with “locate” arrows etc., north arrow, and scale bar.
3 Cartographic Plotting from the Layout Window
The Layout Window in GeoMedia always exists, with a minimum of one layout sheet. Unlike the Map Window and Data Window, the Layout Window only supports a single instance. It is either opened or closed. The Layout Window will allow you to place the Map Window graphics with options for scale bar, north arrow, and legend. It also allows for predefined legend templates and placement of new text / graphics.
The following workflow details steps for MOF’s Landscape Unit plotting.
3.1 In the Map Window
· Setup the map window as described above
3.2 In the Layout Window
· Activate the layout window: Window -> Layout Window
· Import the MOF LU plot template, if it does not exist in the GeoWorkspace using Sheets -> Import Layout (e.g. select LUP Plot Layout D wide.glt)
· Fit the new Layout View -> Fit
· Note: by default you are working with sheet sizes E. For landscape units that don’t fit the width of an E size sheet you will have to resize the page (See Appendix A: Changing the sheet page size).
3.3 The LUP legend template (LUP Plot Layout.glt)
3.3.1 Legend Header
3.3.2 BEC Legend
BEC values will be different across the province. For thematic maps by BECLABEL the resulting legend needs to be placed in the map layout legend.
3.3.3 Legend Footer
The bottom on the legend contains information on scale, projection, base map parameters, the map layout operator, and dates.
3.3.4 Other Legend Elements
The predefined legend leaves space for other individual elements the user wants to show in the legend.
3.4 Editing Text in the Layout Window
· Use zoom controls to zoom into the top of the legend
· After you’ve zoomed be sure to exit the zoom control (hit Esc key)
· Your cursor should be back to a normal pointer
· Before you edit your legend, be sure your Layout Tools are ready to select and edit. Check to be sure the tool bar looks like the following. Note: Tool bars change according to the state of your Layout Window, if you don’t see the following tool bars hit Esc Key a few times to exit any commands that may be currently active.
·
Select the LU Name text box with a single-click of the mouse
·
Now double-click in the box for edit mode, use delete and backspace keys for editing.
Other Edits
· Zoom to the bottom of the legend and follow the steps above to edit the Date and other fields.
· Use these Tools for other editing such as adding new text and graphics to the map surround.
3.5 Inserting Map Window graphics into the Layout Window
Now that the map surround is ready we can add the Map Window graphics.
· Fit the Layout View -> Fit
· Your cursor should be back to a normal pointer
· Before you edit your legend, be sure your Layout Tools are ready to select and edit. Check to be sure the tool bar looks like the following. Note: Tool bars change according to the state of your Layout Window, if you don’t see the following tool bars hit Esc Key a few times to exit any commands that may be currently active.
· Select the map frame group with a single-click of the mouse
· Select function Layout -> Insert Map Graphics from the pull down menu.
· Map window, north arrow, and scale bar get populated. In the example below the map window needs to be moved to not overlap with the legend. You can also see that the necessary sheet-size exceeds the paper size, which means we need to choose either a smaller scale or a larger sheet.
3.6 Adjust and position the Frames
· Insure your tools are set for selecting and editing as before.
3.6.1 Map Frame
· Select the map frame. Note: There can be confusion in selection of the map frame. The Map frame and north arrow are a “Frame Group”. Do not select the “Frame Group” (this can happen if your tools are not set correctly as above). If you have the “Frame Group” selected you will notice only 4 handles as shown below.
· Once you have correctly selected the frame grab individual handles and resize this frame eliminating the white space. Next grab the edge of this border (not a handle) to reposition it. Note: Resizing the frame does not change the scale of our graphics.
· Optionally, right-click on this map frame and hit Properties->FormatTab and turn off Show Border.
3.6.2 North Arrow
· Zoom into the top area where the north arrow was placed. Note: you may not be able to see the north arrow when zoomed out, it is very small.
· Insure your tools are set for selecting and editing as before (Bottom-up selection).
· Select the north arrow (you should see eight handles).
· To resize simply grab a corner handle and drag, then position the north arrow by grabbing the edge (not a handle) and move it.
3.6.3 Scale Bar
· Zoom to the bottom area where the scale bar was placed.
· Insure your tools are set for selecting and editing as before (Bottom-up selection).
· Select the scale bar (you should see eight handles).
· Move to desired location
· Note: you cannot change the scale bar’s size, because this is determined by the map’s scale.
4 Saving Your Work
The Layout Window settings are saved as part of the GeoWorkspace. Simply use File -> Save GeoWorkspace to save the layout window settings.
4.1 Saving Plot Layout
If you have made numerous changes to the map surround you can save this as a Layout Template simply by Sheets->Export Layout. Give the new template a meaningful name. This exported layout will now be available for importing into other GeoWorkspaces.
5 When You Encounter Problems
If you have problems with your layout it is very easy to delete the frames and replace them. Simply select each frame individually (bottom-up) or an entire frame group (top-down) and hit the delete icon. It is a good idea to delete both map frame and north arrow, and then reinsert both (they get inserted as a Frame Group).
Alternatively to restart the entire process you can use Sheets -> Insert Sheet, then delete the problem sheet and start from the beginning.
6 Final Output
· Before you print anything you should do a File->PageSetup. This setup is not absolutely necessary as our template set our page settings automatically, but it is good practice to view these settings anyways.
· In the Page Setup dialogue you can also specify custom sheet sizes if required.
· Click OK above and go to File -> Print.
6.1 Print Settings
The Settings dialogue should always be entered before printing. It gives an overview of the document to be printed (red) and the paper size specified for the printer (black). This paper size is further reduced through hardware dependent margins (blue). In our example below it is obvious that the paper size (E = 44 in x 34 in) is not sufficient to contain the custom sheet size specified before (50 in x 34 in). If the print job would be submitted like this, it would cut off part of the plot. In our example you need to specify a longer paper format (see below).
7 Appendix A: What to do if the plot does not fit the paper
If your Map Graphics do not fit on the standard 36x48 layout you have a few options. One simple option would be to use a different scale when you do the Layout -> Insert Map Graphics. Be sure to change your scale notation on the Legend. The scale bar is automatically adjusted because it is linked to the map frame.
7.1 Plotting on a sheet larger than E-size
Another option is to set-up your printer for long plots, some print drivers will allow for a long plot such as 36x100. This requires a couple of steps outlined below.
7.1.1 Print Server Setup
The first step is to be done on the Print Server:
· On the print server open Control Panel -> Printers.
· Then File->Server Properties and from here you can create a “New Form”, give this form a name like “Long” or “36x100”. Now that the server has a new form called long, the clients will have access to this.
7.1.2 Map Layout Setup
·
Place the frame in the layout window, resize and position it.
·
Next do File -> PageSetup and guess at the page size needed, here I guessed 50 inches long
· This changes the Layout view to the following. Note below that the page now looks long enough.
· Changing the format can sometime mean that map contents need to be repositioned on the paper:
Zoom way out, then select all the graphics using Edit > Select All (you could also select all elements by dragging your cursor from the top right of the layout window to the bottom left). All graphics is selected as indicated by the red seen below. Once all your graphics is selected, you can move them by a click and drag motion. The best place to click is in the middle of the Map – then drag it over. Edit -> Undo can be used if you move the wrong item (be sure to move all items at once).
· Finally, when you print you must double check your printer properties and ensure your using the “long” form for your output. Use the Settings dialogue for a final check before printing.
18 September, 2000 Page 11 of 1