Geospatial Referenced PDF’s In ArcGIS 9.3

ESRI has released a nice video which demonstrates the new capabilities of georeferenced PDF’s created using ArcGIS 9.3 and Acrobat 9.

With ArcGIS 9.3, ESRI has worked with Adobe to add the ability to georeference PDF’s. In order to do this you will need to install the map export patch for ArcGIS 9.3. More information on this can be found here: http://mandown.co.nz/esri/…

A few people have been asking about the new georeferenced PDF’s and what they look like or the features you can use with them in Acrobat 9. Hopefully this video can answer a few of those questions/concerns.

Some of the new features of georeferenced PDF’s in Adobe Acrobat 9 include:

• Toggling layers on and off
• Interacting with the map using dynamic zoom
• Accessing attribute information
• Analysis toolbar
  • Measuring distance and area
  • Viewing latitude and longitude
• Adding local data like shape files and images which overlay. This overlays even if the projection is different. Acrobat handles this for you.

So what software do you need?

• ArcGIS 9.3 with the map export PDF patch which will allow you to create your maps and export them as georeferenced PDF’s.
• A fully licensed version of Adobe Acrobat 9. This can be either Standard, Professional or Extended editions . This will allow you to interact with the PDF and use some of the features like adding local data.
• The free downloadable version of Adobe Acrobat 9 can be used for viewing this data, viewing the latitude and longitudes.

One thing to note is that when you export from ArcGIS 9.3 you export all the spatial information just for the visible extent. This does not export the entire map, allowing you to target specific areas and export all the information that goes with that area.