Mapping Center

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...

Yesterday I got an email from a long time colleague showing me an online map and asking, “When will it be possible to do this map with ArcGIS”? The map is the interactive map of Washington DC at http://dc.everyblock.com. In particular my friend was looking at the crime map wondering how the proportional symbols showing crimes became disaggregated as he zoomed in, eventually showing individual crime sites. Read More...

If you're making a map that is either a large format print map or a map that will be served via ArcGIS Server, squeezing every bit of wasted time out of drawing performance is critical. Don't get tired of sitting there drinking extra cups of coffee watching the word "Drawing", all your layer names, and that little blue globe. If you're finding it stressful to explain when updates will be coming, or the timing for caching the map you are serving, or your map services generate complaints about poor performance, then try the two tips in this entry. Read More...