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Avenza Systems
Avenza Systems is a software company based in Canada that develops cartographic software for the GIS industry. The company's flagship product MAPublisher is a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator which utilizes Adobe Illustrator while maintaining spatial reference for GIS data to create maps for print and the web. Geographic Imager is the other product which is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop to manipulate spatial imagery. Customers of Avenza Systems are international and extensive and include CIA, FBI, National Geographic Society, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, US National Parks Service, Canadian Dept. of National Defence, New York Times, USA Today, The Toronto Star and many more.

Company History
Originally Avenza Global Technologies Corp., Avenza Systems brings a GIS solution to the Adobe Creative Suite giving cartographers access to familiar graphic applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Many GIS applications exist for creating and analyzing GIS data yet a gap existed for a cartographic application for creating maps for publication purposes. Avenza created MAPublisher in 1995 to allow vector GIS data to be imported used within Adobe Illustrator while maintaining spatial reference. MAPublisher became useful for cartographers many who already used Adobe Illustrator but now had the proper tools they needed to create maps. With the initial release of MAPublisher Avenza later followed with Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop to bring tools for raster spatial images.

Avenza has maintained MAPublisher and Geographic Imager with new versions each year and continues to develop each product line.

MAPublisher
MAPublisher is a suite of Adobe Illustrator plug-in tools designed for importing and working with GIS data within the desktop graphics environment for the express purpose of creating map content for print, digital or online requirements.

Leveraging Adobe Illustrator graphics capabilities, MAPublisher incorporates a number aspects of a GIS (data attributes, querying data, data transformations, etc..) and integrates them into Adobe Illustrator providing tools for map editing, data and import/export tools to the Adobe Illustrator environment to assist in the map making process. Additional functionality includes the ability to merge data sets, change projection and map scale, crop, auto-label data, auto-legend, auto-index labeled items, auto-register raster imagery onto vector data, create interactive Flash maps complete with pop-ups, roll-overs, layer controls, search, and pan and zoom controls. MAPublisher also has direct support for exporting data to Geospatial PDF.

MAPublisher allows you to incorporate and import data from major GIS industry leading applications such as ArcGIS, MapInfo, MicroStation, Google and other GIS sources with all attributes and georeferencing intact and fully editable. With the proliferation of on line GIS data portals users may incorporate data from them into mapping projects expediting the time it takes to create maps.

Geographic Imager
Geographic Imager is a suite of spatial imagery tools for Adobe Photoshop that allows the use of it's image editing tools to modify, enhance and manipulate spatial imagery.

Geographic Imager enhances the Adobe Photoshop design environment by tools and technology necessary to import, edit, and manipulate geospatial imagery such as aerial and satellite imagery, digital elevation model data and scanned maps while maintaining the georeferencing information. The benefit of using Geographic Imager is being able to incorporate and apply the numerous native Adobe Photoshop functions such as transparency, cropping, pixel editing, and brightness/contrast controls on referenced raster formats, while having the imagery spatially in tact. Geographic Imager's has the ability to export data to numerous formats including DEM, GeoTIFF, Geospatial PDF, |NITF, ECW, Erdas Imagine Raster and more.

PDF Maps
PDF Maps is a mobile GIS solution for Apple iOS. The free application allows the use of custom maps to be added by the user or purchased using the Avenza Map Store. The Map Store contains free and paid maps with a variety of uses that include transit maps, hiking maps, tourist maps and topographic maps. Maps are submitted by cartographers from all over the world so there are maps for almost every location. Once the maps have been downloaded to the mobile device the application doesn't require a internet connection to work. The application includes numerous functions such as showing your location on the map, allowing you to add place marks to locations, to store information, photos and measure distances. Some functionality will require an internet connection such as importing KML files and finding places to search for nearby locations.

Contact Info
Avenza Systems can be reached at General Info info@avenza.com Phone: (416) 487-5116 Fax: (416) 487-7213

Avenza Systems offers comprehensive technical support throughout the licensing period for the product as well as several knowledge enhancement options including in person training, user forums, instructional documentation and DVD's.