Mapping Center

A common question that we get on Mapping Center is how to create an elevation legend in ArcMap. In September of 2007, there was a blog entry on Mapping Center (Creating a legend for hypsometrically tinted shaded relief) that outlined a method for creating a legend for hypsometrically tinted shaded relief. When that blog was written, the option to Convert Graphics to Features was not yet available. This blog outlines a simpler method for creating an elevation legend using this new option (version 9.3 and later). Read More...

Depending on the type of highway you are labeling (interstate highway, U.S. route highway, or state route highway), the standard highway shield symbol may or may not be wide enough for all the characters in your labels.

Often, you do not get the desired outcome by simply using one shield for all highway number labels because one size rarely fits all! The numbers look “squished” or they overrun the shield symbol when there are more than two characters (depending on how large you make the shield and the characters).

Here are some tricks you can use to create highway shields for labels of varying widths, especially when there are more than two characters in some of the highway names. Read More...

All of the Mapping Center Team was at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California this past week (July 11-17). We taught Tech Sessions, we demoed our online map services, we had meetings with users, we attended sessions, we judged maps, we promoted books, we solicited feedback on our work, and we made connections for future projects.  We also got to see many people we know and to make new friends!

We thought you might like to hear what the highlights of the conference were from our perspective, but we'd love to hear what you thought about the conference, if you were able to be here. Please take a moment to add a comment so we can hear from you! Read More...

In the next couple of blog posts, we want to explain a bit about the two tools you can use to create buffers in ArcGIS. Buffers are used not only in analysis of distances and areas around point, line and area features, they are also used in mapping to achieve a number of cartographic effects, such as coastal vignettes. Since there are two tools and multiple methods you can use to create buffers, and each have their particular strengths and weaknesses, we thought it would be good to review these for you. In the next couple of blog posts, we'll describe the tools and methods, how they differ and what you need to consider when using them. Read More...

Last week we started telling you about the new ArcGIS Online World Topographic Map. As I was working on the design of that map, with the intent of providing a better basis for mash-ups, I had an idea. It was born of frustration with the fact some mash-ups don't work because too much information obscures the base map, making for an unreadable, often ugly result. Demographic layers represent a great example of the kind of information that just doesn't always work well in a simple mash-up. Read More...

Most of the Mapping Center Team will be at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California over the next week (July 11-17). If you’re there, look for us in the following presentations:

• The One Minute Cartographer - Aileen Buckley and Mamata Akella
• Map Use Book Series - A. Jon Kimerling and Aileen Buckley
• Local Government Basemaps using ArcGIS - Charlie Frye and others (Scott Oppmann and Steve Grise)
• ESRI Geologic Mapping Template - Charlie Frye and Janel Day
• Map Use: Reading and Analysis - A. Jon Kimerling and & Aileen Buckley

The Mapping Center Team is pleased to share the ArcGIS Online News announcement that includes the availability of the new World Topographic Map. As several members of the Mapping Center team played a significant role in the design and production of this map, we would like to begin telling you about this map. The World Topographic Map covers the globe to about 1:1,000,000 scale. Within the U.S. (excluding Alaska), the map scale extends to about 1:18,000. The map is a cached map and uses the Virtual Earth/Google Maps tiling scheme (WKID = 102113). What follows are some of the essentials everyone should know about this map, including that the service is free. Read More...

We’ve posted our recently revised Color Ramps version 2.0 styles on our site to be more suitable for your use. Our impetus was we needed something new to work on a project with the topic of Washington Landforms and it is specific to printed maps. This is a map that we will talk about in our "One Minute Cartographer" session at the ESRI User Conference this year. This presentation will be posted on the Mapping Center - Other Resources page after the conference. The color ramp used on this map was selected from the PNW_x set in the new Hypsometry style. (PNW stands for "Pacific Northwest".) Read More...

How fast can you cache?  We keep asking ourselves that and keep finding that the more we know the faster we cache.

If you’re involved in the job of caching maps for online map services, you are already familiar with the need to optimize the process as much as possible so that it takes less time and effort. One way you can do this is to optimize how your maps are displayed – another is to optimize the environment you are caching your map in or the circumstances under which you are caching. This blog post is dedicated to the latter. Read More...