Tag Archives: Professional Map Making

Use the Alt Key while Drawing or Selecting Objects

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Using the Alt key while drawing or selecting objects is useful in the following situations:

Select an object behind an object already selected

To select an object behind an already selected object, keep the Alt or Alt Gr key pressed and click on the already selected object.
Video

Select next object for editing

Select a line object and choose e.g. the Cut function. If you press the Alt key, the cursor changes to the Select Object and Edit Vertex mode. Keep the Alt key pressed and click the next object you want to cut. Release the Alt key and continue with the cutting.
Video

Draw horizontal lines

To draw horizontal or vertical lines, press and hold the Alt button. The line snaps in a vertical or horizontal direction.
Video

Move and duplicate objects parallel

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The latest OCAD Service Update brought improvments to the function Move Parallel, with which you can move a line parallel to the original line.

  • Hold the ALT key down to select the next object to move.
  • Press Shift+Ctrl key to duplicate object while moving parallel.

The new features are explaint in a short video on our YouTube Channel.

Symbol Status Manager

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The Status Symbol Manager allows you to save and load different status settings of your symbols in the same map.

Example:
We have a topographic map, which shall be used in summer and winter.

For that, we first create a summer edition of the map.

Now, we save the current Symbol Status of the summer map in the Symbol Status Manager.

Afterwards we change the summer map, e.g. we remove tracks and add ski slopes to get our winter edition.

It’s important to save the newly created winter edition in a new symbol status. Otherwise, we would overwrite the summer edition.

You can now choose between loading the summer or the winter edition of your map. When you change the map, e.g you add a new building, it will be taken over in both summer and winter edition.

See short video on YouTube.
More information on our OCAD Wiki.


Convert Area or Line Objects to Point Objects

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You may have symbols on your map, which consist of many different line and/or area objects. Editing and moving around these Symbols can get tedious. In OCAD Mapping Solution, there’s a function to Convert Area and Line Objects to a Point Symbol (Wiki).

A typical example for this function would be the import of a PDF. Vector objects in PDF files are imported as Image Objects (grey objects) and can be converted to Point Symbols (green objects). Learn here, how to Create a Point Symbol out of Vector Data (Video).

Convert Line and Area Objects to Point Objects

Your map becomes more consistent and better structured.

Create Objects with Pairs of Coordinates

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In OCAD, you can create objects with pair of coordinates. Copy coordinates e.g. from Google Maps to clipboard. When you press Paste in the OCAD window (Ctrl + V or in the Menu Object> Paste), a dialogue window appears.

Now you have three options:
You can move the view to this coordinates, create point objects at the coordinates or create line or area objects (only available if more than one pair of coordinates exists).

To use this function properly, a coordinate system has to be defined and the pasted coordinates need to fit to this coordinate system.

Link to HowTo-Video
More information on our Wiki

Supported formats so far:
– Google: 47.4563036,7.6405326
– Google: -24.8512749,-59.8029067
– OpenStreetMap: 47.45295/7.64673
– OpenStreetMap: -37.762/-62.183
– OpenStreetMap: 46.3103041, 4.8142705
– geo.admin.ch: 615’582.01, 256’284.55
– geo.admin.ch: 47.45648, 7.64039
– geo.admin.ch: 47°27′23.313″N 7°38′25.401″E