wxGUI Cartographic Composer - GRASS GIS Manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: wxGUI Cartographic Composer: GRASS GIS Reference Manual

## wxGUI Cartographic Composer

## DESCRIPTION

wxGUI Cartographic Composer also called wx.psmap is a wxGUI extension which allows the user to create interactively hardcopy map outputs. This tool generates ps.map configuration file and then runs ps.map to create PostScript output. There are two modes - Draft mode for map composing and Preview mode (requires Python Imaging Library) to see how the result will look like. In draft mode map features (like legend or scalebar) are represented by a colored rectangle with a label.

Possible output files:

- ps.map instructions file
- PostScript/EPS file
- PDF (using ps2pdf)

Cartographic Composer enables to load in saved instructions file. Loading instruction files created by Cartographic Composer is more robust, as opposed to loading files created manually.

Currently supported ps.map instructions:

- paper
- maploc
- scale
- border
- raster
- colortable
- vpoints
- vlines
- vareas
- vlegend
- text
- scalebar
- mapinfo
- point
- line
- rectangle
- labels

### CARTOGRAPHIC COMPOSER TOOLBAR

Generate instructions file
  Generates and saves text file with mapping instructions.
Load instructions file
  Load text file with mapping instructions.
Page setup
  Specify paper size, margins and orientation.
Pointer
  Select object on the paper by clicking, drag the cursor while pressing the left mouse button to move it or resize object (currently only map frame) by clicking on a small black box in its bottom right corner. Double click to show object properties dialog
Pan
  Drag the pan cursor while pressing the left mouse button to move your view.
Zoom in
  Interactive zooming with the mouse in both draft and preview mode. Drawing a box or just a left click with the mouse and zoom-in cursor causes the display to zoom in so that the area defined by the box fills the display.
Zoom out
  Interactive zooming with the mouse in both draft and preview mode. Drawing a box or just a left click with the mouse and zoom-out cursor causes the display to zoom out so that the area displayed shrinks to fill the area defined by the box.
Zoom to page
  Zoom to display the entire page
Map frame
  Click and drag to place map frame. If map frame is already drawn, open a dialog to set its properties.
Raster map
  Shows a dialog to add or change the raster map.
Vector map
  Shows a dialog to add or change current vector maps and their properties:
  Data selection
    Select data to draw:
    Feature type
      Select which data type to draw. In case of point data, points or centroids can be drawn, in case of line data, lines or boundaries.
    Layer selection
      Select layer and limit data by a SQL query or chose only certain categories.
    Mask
      Whether to use mask or not.
  Colors
    Color settings:
    Outline
      Select outline color and width in points. In case of lines, outline means highlighting.
    Fill
      Select fill color, one color for all vector elements or color from rgb column.
  Size and style
    Sets size, style, symbols, pattern; depends on data type:
    Symbology
      Available for point data. Choose symbol or EPS file to draw points with.
    Line style
      Available for line data. Select line style (solid, dashed, ...) and the look of the ends of the line (butt, round, ...)
    Pattern
      Available for areas. Choose pattern file and set the width of the pattern.
    Size
      Available for point data. Choose size (number of times larger than the size in the icon file) as a single value or take the size from a map table column.
    Rotation
      Available for point data. Rotate symbols counterclockwise with the given value or with the value from a map table column
    Width
      Available for line data. Set line width in points or take the value from a map table column.
Add overlays
  Add overlays: vector labels, grid (not yet implemented)
  Add labels
    Add vector labels created beforehand by v.label module.
Add map elements
  Add map elements: legend, scalebar, map info, text
  Add legend
    Add raster or vector legend or edit their properties.
  Add map info
    Add information about region, grid and scale or edit map info properties.
  Add scalebar
    Add scalebar or edit its properties.
  Add text
    Add text label.
Remove selected element
  Select an object and remove it. Pressing Delete key does the same.
Show preview
  Generates output and switches to Preview mode to see the result. Be patient, it can take a while.
Generate hardcopy map output in PS
  Generates hardcopy map output in PostScript/EPS file.
Generate hardcopy map output in PDF
  Generates hardcopy map output in PDF using ps2pdf or Ghostscript gswin32c/gswin64c (OS MS Windows platform only).

## SEE ALSO

wxGUI, wxGUI components

See also wiki page.

## AUTHOR

Anna Kratochvilova, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic (bachelor's final project 2011, mentor: Martin Landa)

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: wxGUI Cartographic Composer source code (history)

Accessed: Saturday May 09 11:22:09 2026

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