Mapping Center

Symbolizing a hillshade raster layer (the output of the Spatial or 3D Analyst's Hillshade tool) seems pretty straight forward, in fact the default symbology (black to white ramp) doesn't look too bad. In fact, if your hillshade layer is the only layer in your map, and if you don't mind not seeing some of the details that have been visually absorbed into the darker tones, the default symbology is okay. To be fair, the default symbology for hillshades is for far more than just terrain depictions, so it's good to know what might be helpful when depicting terrain with a hillshade. The image to the left is an example of a hillshade using the default color ramp. Read More...

The map excerpt shown at right (click on it to see the details) shows an example of hollow cased roads.  The map is from a mosaic of USGS DRG image files.  The map specification requires that the cased road symbol contains a transparent gap.  The examples shown below were created with ArcMap 9.2 and used cartographic representations to re-create the effect on the USGS DRG map. Read More...

The illustration at left shows a map the Paris Metro system (RATP).  The routes are depicted in a schematic view and this kind of map is challenging to create because multiple routes may share the same path, for example multiple bus routes along a single road or track. When this happens, the coincident routes are offset in a fashion that makes it possible to understand the path each route is taking. When using ArcMap and line features for the routes, the coincident features draw on top of one another, making it difficult to visualize. Read More...

This final part of the series will cover using cartographic representations for dashed lines, like the red and white cased lines in the image at the left, and for creating cul-de-sac or squared off ends to streets.  Both of these effects will build on the examples in the previous two portions of this series with one exception.  Because we will be using cartographic representations for the streets, we will be better able to manage line caps and therefore will not need to use the Dissolve tool to dissolve the streets by name, type, and z-level.  The removal of this step is significant because now an extra dataset is not required just to have cartographic quality streets; everything needed for a high quality cartographic depiction of streets can be stored in attributes. This should come as good news to those of you who have mentioned to us, many times, that managing additional datasets for the sake of cartography is not only a data management, but a political hurdle, that you would just as soon not have to deal with. Read More...