Geocart 3.3.6 released

[daan]

Geocart 3.3.6 has been released and is available on the Downloads page.

New functionality
• MacOS Big Sur support.
• Gall-Bomford projection.
• Ellipsoidal version of gnomonic projection (great elliptic arcs are straight).
• Filled out projection information for all projections in Change Projection dialogue and improved most existing descriptions.
• Added drag-and-drop of images on Macintosh.

Bug fixes and performance improvements
• Fixed a hang when enumerating certain uncommon fonts.
• Much improved CMYK to RGB conversion (used in label databases).
• Greatly improved raster projection rendering for most world maps on machines with high thread counts.
• Fixed several bugs in high DPI support (Retina displays).
• Fixed a slight bug in Gilbert two-world projection near north pole under large scales.
• Fixed parameter bug in generalized Wagner projection.
• Fixed globe gore parameter filtering.
• Better support for rendering while scrolling on Apple’s latest OS versions (Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur).

With regard to “better support for rendering on Apple’s latest OS versions”: Unfortunately, Apple has changed their imaging model in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with Geocart’s rendering architecture. There are two manifestation of the problem: One is poor performance while scrolling, and the other is white areas left blank if drawing while scrolling or resizing. This blanking problem can be severe on some machines in these later OS versions for Geocart versions 3.3.1–3.3.5. We have made some changes for 3.3.6 that help, but unfortunately we have no way to fix it reliably without completely redesigning a huge chunk of Geocart’s architecture. That will not happen in the foreseeable future.

The work-around here is to simply click on your map and move it slightly, for example. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Other than that,
Happy mapping!

[Atarimaster]

Geocart 3.3.6 has been released and is available on the Downloads page.

Thanks a lot!

• MacOS Big Sur support.

Great!
I’ve got a rule: “Don’t trust any macOS below .4” which has served me well during the past 15 years. Since Big Sur is now crawling towards that version number, it’s good to know that Geocart is prepared.

• Added drag-and-drop of images on Macintosh.

This will be very helpful!

• Fixed parameter bug in generalized Wagner projection.

There was a bug there?!?
I can’t remember I’ve ever noticed it and I’ve surely used that parameter dialogue a hell of a lot of times!
What was it exactly?

• Better support for rendering while scrolling on Apple’s latest OS versions (Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur).

Thanks again!
Even when you couldn’t fix it reliably an improvement will be most welcome!

The work-around here is to simply click on your map and move it slightly, for example.

Another work-around that works well for me is to use the Navigator instead of scrolling to move around in your document.

Kind regards,
Tobias

[daan]

Thanks for the kind words, Tobias.

There was a bug there?!?
I can’t remember I’ve ever noticed it and I’ve surely used that parameter dialogue a hell of a lot of times!
What was it exactly?

My notes on this are:

The result of this bug was that converting Wagner VII (for example) to generalized Wagner would not result in the same projection.

Does that makes sense?

I’ve got a rule: “Don’t trust any macOS below .4” which has served me well during the past 15 years. Since Big Sur is now crawling towards that version number, it’s good to know that Geocart is prepared.

I wish I had that rule, or the luxury of having that rule. Big Sur 11.0 was a complete nightmare: It trashed my boot drive and my two internal back-up drives during installation. My external back-up was 10 days out of date, so I lost important material and wasted a solid two weeks between trying to recover what I had, fixing the firmware and OS, and trying to reconstruct what I had lost.

Cheers,
— daan

[Atarimaster]

My notes on this are:

The result of this bug was that converting Wagner VII (for example) to generalized Wagner would not result in the same projection.

Does that makes sense?

Ummm. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.

I just rendered three versions of Wagner VII, each one at a nominal scale of 1 : 40,000,000; a resolution of 300 pixels/inch and with the Natural Earth 10m_coastline.shp database:

1) Using Wagner VII in Geocart 3.1 (which didn’t have the generalized Wagner);
2) using the generalized Wagner with the appropriate parameters to render Wagner VII^[1] in Geocart 3.3.5;
3) using the generalized Wagner with the same parameters in Geocart 3.3.6.

I exported the maps as PDF and layered them on top of each other in an illustration application – and I can see no difference at all!
Maybe I’m getting wrong what you mean by “converting Wagner VII to generalized Wagner”?

Big Sur 11.0 was a complete nightmare: It trashed my boot drive and my two internal back-up drives during installation. My external back-up was 10 days out of date, so I lost important material and wasted a solid two weeks between trying to recover what I had, fixing the firmware and OS, and trying to reconstruct what I had lost.

Damn!
You’ve got my sympathies, that IS a nightmare!

Kind regards,
Tobias


[1] The “appropriate parameters” being:
a = 2.66724
b = 1.24103
m = 0.90631
m₂ = 1
n = 0.333333
taken directly from Wagner’s “Kartographische Netzentwürfe”, with Wagner’s values for a and b each divided by 2.

[daan]

Ummm. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.

Sorry about the confusing explanation. Trying again: Before Geocart 3.3.6, if you create a map directly selecting Wagner VII from the Lenticular menu, and then change its projection to Generalized Wagner, you will get a different projection than Wagner VII.

— daan

[Atarimaster]

Before Geocart 3.3.6, if you create a map directly selecting Wagner VII from the Lenticular menu, and then change its projection to Generalized Wagner, you will get a different projection than Wagner VII.

Aah yes, I can reproduce this.
Thanks for clarifying!