Exporting geo-referenced Terrain maps into PDF maps
Updated June 08, 2016
This article applies to:
- Terrain 3D
- Terrain Forestry
- RoadEng Civil
- RoadEng Forestry
PDF Maps made by Avenza Systems Inc is a geospatial PDF, GeoPDF® and GeoTIFF reader for your Apple iOS and Android smart phone or tablet. It allows you to interact with spatially referenced maps to view your location, record GPS tracks, add place marks, and find places (see http://www.avenza.com/pdf-maps for more information).
To get geo-referenced maps from Terrain Tools® into Avenza PDF Maps the following steps are required:
1. Before doing this example make sure your Avenza PDF Maps app has the latest update (Go to the app store on your iPad and check under "Updates").
2. Open your map in Terrain. Set up the coordinate system (menu Module | Setup | Projections). e.g. UTM Z10. This assumes your map coordinates are set appropriately.
3. This step creates a PRJ file. It is only required if once, if you always work in the same map projection/coordinate system. Save your map as a Shape file (*.SHP). This will create a *.PRJ file used in step 6.
4. In the Plan window of Terrain, set your scale to something appropriate and lock it. Then zoom to the area that you want included in the map.
5. Choose menu File | Save As - Screen Capture (.JPG). In the Export Options Dialog, reduce the "User Units per Pixel" to something reasonable. This will increase the resolution of the image, thus reducing how grainy it shows up in Avenza PDF Maps.
NOTE: Pay attention to the Image Size. Don't go too big.
6. The previous step created 2 files (*.jpg and * .jgw). In the same folder add the *.PRJ file from step 3 and change its name to match the jwg and jgw files. Zip them all together.
e.g. MyMap.jpg + MyMap.jgw + MyMap.prj --> MyMap.zip
7. Now load this zip file into Avenza PDF Maps via iTunes File Sharing or Dropbox.
Your Terrain map is now loaded in Avenza PDF!