Design and Realize the Great-Wall Thematic Photo-mappingBased on ArcGIS and Illustrator

As one of the important achievements of the Great Wall surveying project,thematic maps for the Great Wall are based on the aerial remote sensing images,which carry a large quantity of present fundamental geographic data and thematic information.Those maps can serve various purposes such as Great Wall reparation and protection.Generally there are two major techniques to produce imagery thematic map.The first is using a geographical information system(GIS)software,e.g.,ArcGIS and MapInfo,etc.The other is using professional mapping software such as CorelDraw,Illustrator.In this paper,we propose a novel technique which combines geographical information system software(ArcGIS)and professional mapping software(Illustrator).The combination will fully make use of advantages of each technique and avoid their weaknesses.It will use ArcGIS to manage and process spatial data,and use Illustrator to present and output spatial data.We applied this method to producing the thematic maps for the Great Wall.Overall design,data organization and processing,and map decoration design were introduced.This paper concluded that this combination technique not only improves mapping precision and map presentation,but also increases the mapping efficiency and lowers costs.Such method will have a brilliant future for map producing.