Global Mapper v25.0

Printing line/area features

hover
hover Global Mapper UserTrusted User
edited April 2014 in Technical Support
Although I'm using Global mapper for quite a while - and with great pleasure - it seems that I still have some lack of understanding when it comes to export (for printing).

I have some area features all of the same type, let's say line style DOT, line width 4 points. These lines/areas appear exactly as expected, on screen, independent of the zoom level (which of course makes sense). However, when it comes to export (either as raster/image JPG or as PDF), the lines are almost invisible. PDF is a little bit "better" but still completely different than how it is displayed on screen.

Is there a kind of scaling factor which allows me to enlarge line styles for exporting/printing while keeping them comfortable to be displayed on screen? Such a scaling factor is available for fonts, I assume.

Or am I missing a basic concept?

Comments

  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited April 2014
    For exports the line width is specified as a number of pixels, so for example if you have a 4 pixel wide line style and export to a JPG with 1 meter per pixel resolution, the line will be 4 meters wide in the output. So for high resolution exports with lots of pixels you may have to zoom in for a while to see the lines. The same with PDF which typically has a higher DPI than what you see on the screen. Printouts are different and will automatically scale the width so the printed size is the same as the on-screen display size. So you can print to a file if you want to automatically scale.

    You can make the line width be a fixed number of meters rather than pixels, then the size relative to other features will be the same regardless of the resolution of the export. All of the line width selection drop-downs have an option to set a fixed line width in meters.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    geohelp@bluemarblegeo.com
    Blue Marble Geographics for Coordinate Conversion, Image Reprojection and Vector Translation