Mapping Center

Dash-dot line symbols for polygon outlines should be displayed in a way that consistently shows the pattern of dashes and dots and clearly shows the shape of the polygon. In ArcGIS, a multi-layer line symbol is required. One layer is a cartographic line symbol with a dash pattern.  The second is a marker line symbol that shows a marker (the dot) with a complementary pattern to the dashes. Read More...

Notice in the first graphic below that the labels for "CAJON ST" and "CLIFTON CT" are placed over of major streets in a way that makes them difficult to read. This graphic is derived from my recent blog entry on the Maplex Street Placement option, and I was using the Street Placement option, but that left me with this problem. Well, this happened because I didn't tell the Maplex Label Engine to treat the major streets differently. Read More...

For many GIS users and cartographers, the use of external graphics software is a common step in his or her workflow and production of print quality maps. One of ArcMap's more popular export formats is the Adobe Illustrator (AI) export because of its wide compatibility with a number of graphics software packages. This export format was first made available in ArcGIS 8.1 Service Pack 1 and has been popular ever since. The ArcMap AI exporter has been fully tested to work in Adobe Illustrator CS and CS2. It is currently being tested in CS3 with good initial results. Read More...

A lot of people don't know about the Advanced ArcMap Settings utility - it can help you customize some of ArcMap's default options and as a result make your experience with ArcMap a bit more efficient and personalized.  The executable file that starts the utility is located in your ArcGIS\Utilities folder.  On my computer, the path is C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Utilities.  Double-click the AdvancedArcMapSettings.exe filename to start the utility.  Here are some options you may find useful on the various tabs: Read More...

Indicating that a street is one-way and which way is valid to travel was a lot harder than it should have been prior to version 9.2.  At 9.2, the new representations symbology makes this a much faster and easier task.  To create this effect, you will need to have your street line data stored in a geodatabase which is a requirement for using representation symbology.

You will also need to have a field in your data that indicates whether a street is one-way. This also depends on the digitized direction of the street lines to align the arrows in the correct direction. If your streets are not digitized correctly, you can edit them by selecting each feature, set the Edit task to Modify Feature, then right click on the feature and choose Flip. Read More...

You may already have the Maplex for ArcGIS Extension. It's free with an ArcInfo license of ArcGIS. Many ArcInfo users don't know this and that fact has unfortunately kept many people from taking advantage of the superior text placement capabilities in the Maplex Label Engine.

One of those capabilities is the Street Placement option, which is available in the user interface for line layers. Though it is obviously for street labeling, we are often asked what exactly does it do?. Here's the answer Read More...

A few months ago I wrote a blog entry called setting the Z Factor parameter correctly, and I used the Hillshade tool as the example.  Since then several people wrote into Ask a Cartographer with questions related to using the Hillshade tool, and we've responded additional guidelines worth sharing. Together, these guidelines form the basis our standard workflow in producing hillshade datasets. Read More...

Here's a question that has, in various forms, been posed on Ask a Cartographer:  "I have a map that has a hillshade and a DEM drawn with transparency on top of it. I cannot figure out how to make a legend that properly shows the final colors on my map." Read More...