Selectable Overlays in a PDF?

[Coriolis]

I'd like to be able to make some PDFs that my map users could use to switch map features on and off (labels, cities, roads, et cetera), like I can do in GIMP with my layers. How do I do this?

[Coriolis]

Just to follow-up, I've found a way to do this after some trial and error using Scribus. It's a little clunky, as I have to individually export each layer out of GIMP and them add them into layers in Scribus. I also have to enable layers in the export options, but it works, and I now have a PDF of a map that the user can fiddle with to produce many variations on the overall map with a fairly reasonable file size of 16 MB for a 3200x2550 pixel map with 30 layers.

[Redrobes]

Thats useful to know. I don't think I would use the PDF format for dungeon mapping myself but there have been other non mapping related things where a PDF has been useful to do or required and its interesting to know how you can do layers in that.

I believe you can add a PDF as an attachment on this forum. If you ever have the time to do a mini tut showing the process then I believe you can add the steps in PDF format but you only get a little widget symbol instead of a nice image. But as a means of showing its capabilities then that would be cool. Maybe I should reconsider using that format...

[Coriolis]

I've been playing with this technique for about a week now. It's interesting. PDFs seem to assemble only the part of the layered image that you're looking at, so it has to reassemble it every time you move. This approach can get really demanding on a PC as you stack up lots of layers. My computer is pretty robust, but a guy I sent my 30-layer PDF file to had to close all other programs to handle it. I think it's a RAM issue. This means I have to be picky about which layers I choose to include, as I have to keep the total number of layers fairly low.

I'll see about doing a mini tut. It'll probably be a while.