Known issue - Aerial imagery shifting in pdfs

Last updated: 2024-03-19

Background

Sometimes aerial imagery can shift when plotted to pdf. The shift is not visible until the pdf is created (i.e. it does not show up in layout view or in plot preview).

Known issues

The combination of the following items causes the shift:

  • Rotated viewport
  • Large raster image file size
  • Raster files added using MAPIINSERT
  • Plotting directly to pdf

Solutions

Not rotating viewports is not a viable solution for plan sheets. But removing one of the other conditions will solve the problem.

The following solutions are in order of preference with supporting reasons:

Reduce aerial imagery file size

There is no documentation of "this file size is too big". If the image shifts in the plotted pdf, that's too big. Use of the WisDOT Imagery best practices for plan sheets is a good solution for creating and using many smaller imagery files for plan production.

Don't use MAPIINSERT

If you need to use very large raster images in a rotated viewport, there are the following options:

  1. Connect using Mapworkspace (FDO Copnnection)
    1. MAPWSPACE > Display Manager tab > Data > Connect to Data... > Add Raster Image or Surface Connection will prevent the shift problem
    2. Limitations
      1. Content connected to with the FDO connection will not show with software that does not use Map 3D. This includes:
        1. DWG TrueView
        2. Publish Collections Manager
  2. Use WisDOT Imagery stream
    1. From limited testing, it appears that the web streams from WisDOT Imagery tab do not shift
    2. Limitations
      1. Content connected to with the web stream will not show with software that does not use Map 3D. This includes:
        1. DWG TrueView

        2. Publish Collections Manager

Don't plot directly to PDF

This solution does not require any changes to files or connections to them, but it does introduce another file format and software in the plotting solution. If no changes to any existing files is required, this option is available.

  1. Change the plotter in layout page setups to DWFx
    1. Plan sheet page setup defaults are set to PDF. This can be changed to DWFx (Autodesk version of PDF). It can be done manually, but it is recommended to change this with page setups.
    2. WisDOT Sheets tab > Plot panel > Page Setup Palette > DWFx Page Setups tool palette > DWFx-11x17-stnd will add the DWFx 11x17 page setup to the file.
    3. This can be applied manually with right-click layout > Page Setup Manager... > highlight DWF-11x17-stnd > Set Current or in batch mode with WisDOT Sheets > Plot panel > Assign Page Setup
  2. Open resulting DWFx in Design Review (free Autodesk software) and plot to PDF
    1. App menu > Open file
    2. App menu > Print > Print to available PDF driver