ArcInfo 8: New Possibilities for Cartographers

The new demands made of geographic data mean that the concept of holding digital data in individual map sheets is no longer sufficient. To meet the needs of its user community and the growing interest in cartography, Esri has developed an object-oriented data model and three new applications that will provide cartographers with the tools to meet the demands of users in the twenty-first century.

ArcMap provides a fully integrated map display, editing, and production environment.

The cartographer is likely to see immediate benefit from the following functionality:

• A data model capable of handling product- and scale-independent databases in a multiuser environment
  
• An ergonomic design and WYSIWYG interface that makes complex cartographic composition and production tasks easy to perform
  
• A customization environment that is scalable to the cartographer's needs
  
• A unified, out-of-the-box interface for easy access to a diversity of data sources (dozens of direct read/display options are provided)
  
• Support for complex and dynamic representations and more output formats
  
• Powerful map composition and page layout tools
  
• Very high performance on large data sets
  
• Automatic grid/graticule creation
  
• The most comprehensive library of all map symbols, markers, fonts, and shadesets
  
• Support for all popular output formats (PostScript, PDF, CGM)
  

ArcInfo 8 builds on the previous versions of ArcInfo with enhancements to the tools used by the cartographer. All the previous functionality available is fully supported and available with ArcInfo 8.

The user will quickly realize the full potential of ArcInfo 8 through the combination of the powerful data model and the three new applications: ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox. These applications are designed to work closely with each other, and in many situations the user will interact with them as if they were one application.

ArcMap gives the cartographer a state-of-the-art map editing environment along with the presentation and layout tools required for producing high-quality printed maps. Any users familiar with the latest computer-aided design (CAD) editing packages will recognize the powerful and intuitive ergonomic features of the Object Editor component of ArcMap. The interface used for map sheet composition is fully WYSIWYG, and the tools available for marginalia generation are powerful yet straightforward to use.

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