Global Mapper v25.0

Dotted lines are rendered as dashed lines, in PDF

hover
hover Global Mapper UserTrusted User
A lines feature using line style "Dot" (fixed width 3m) appears as dashed line in PDF.
What's wrong? 

Comments

  • bmg_bob
    bmg_bob Global Mapper Programmer
    Hello,

    What version of Global Mapper are you using?  What was the workflow for creating your PDF?  Did you use the Export menu from the main view, or did you use the Map Layout Editor (version 17 and later)?

    In general, the library we use to export PDF files has some limitations in how it formats line styles, so we have to make some approximations to accommodate dotted and dashed lines.

    Cheers,
    Bob
  • hover
    hover Global Mapper User Trusted User
    Thanks for the fast reponse.

    I'm using GM 17.2.2 (b070216).
    I exported as PDF, no use of the map layout editor.

    For my customer (and hence for me) it is essential to have the same (dotted) line style he used before.
  • hover
    hover Global Mapper User Trusted User
    I also tested with other lines styles, it seems that the PDF renderer ignores most of the styles.

    That's a very serious problem for me, since PDF is the standard exchange format and my customers don't want to change their line styles, which is well understandable from my point of view.

    Is there a workaround with Global Mapper or not?
  • bmg_bob
    bmg_bob Global Mapper Programmer
    Hello,

    I was able to tweak the rendering of dotted lines when exporting to PDF, and the result is better, though not perfect.  This change is available in the latest GM 17.2 daily build.  Simply download the appropriate installer and run it to install the latest build.

    Cheers,
    Bob
  • hover
    hover Global Mapper User Trusted User
    That helped a lot, thank you.
    However, I still hope that your PDF converter will be able to render circles as circles in near futire.
  • Mykle
    Mykle Global Mapper User Trusted User
    You may have acceptable results by exporting to a raster file (georeferenced), then load that file alone (or with other layers turned off), and finally export to PDF.  That should preserve line styles as displayed by Global Mapper. 

    You don't have to export your raster file as a finished product.  Just export the layer(s) containing data that the PDF renderer does not handle as you like.  When you reload that file, set the properties to Multiply (I'm using a Photoshop term that may be worded differently in GM), so you can see underlying layers like photography. 
  • hover
    hover Global Mapper User Trusted User
    Bright idea, does work :-)

    I had to increase the resolution when exporting (as GeoTIFF), then reimport and finally export to PDF (which, for this one line, takes ages). Although pretty clumsy, I finally get a nice, dotted line. And I finally merge/rearrange all layers anyway, using Acrobat Pro.

    Thanks a lot.