Windows metafiles contain drawing information for reproducing vector images. Metafiles conserve the symbol, line, fill, and text information of objects as Windows drawing commands. Because of this, Windows metafiles can be rescaled in the receiving application without any distortion or loss of resolution.
Metafiles use a coordinate system based on screen coordinates, and do not contain true "map" coordinates. The screen coordinates may be defined as something like 1000 units per inch. You can re-impose a map coordinate system on an imported metafile image using the Map | Calibration command. In this case, you need two control points included in the metafile. Control points are points for which you know the map coordinates. Coordinates can be assigned to the map control points with the Map | Calibration command.
Import
The Windows metafile formats you can import into MapViewer are Windows Clipboard (Picture) [.CLP], Windows Metafile (Enhanced) [.EMF], and Windows Metafile [.WMF]. To load a metafile, use the File | Import command.
When you import a Windows Metafile [.WMF], the metafile is broken into its component parts. Each area, point, curve, or drawing object is drawn as a separate object, using the object properties assigned to each when the file was saved.
Export
MapViewer can export Windows Metafile [.WMF], Windows Clipboard [.CLP], Windows Metafile (Enhanced) [.EMF], and Computer Graphics Metafile [.CGM] files. Many Windows applications can import these files and place the picture into a document. Exporting to these file types is useful when a picture must be moved to a computer that does not have MapViewer installed. The exported file can be placed on the other computer and the picture can be imported into another application.
Metafiles use a coordinate system based on screen coordinates, and do not contain true "map" coordinates. When you export to a metafile, the map coordinates are lost and the special screen coordinates are assigned to the objects on the map. Screen coordinates may be defined as something like 1,000,000 units per inch. If you need to preserve the map coordinates in a file, you should consider using [.GSB], [. BNA], [.DXF], [.SHP], [.BLN], or [.GSI] formats for file export.
See Also