Mapping Center

We got a good question on Ask a Cartographer this morning.  The gist of the question was how to go about symbolizing street centerlines so they could be drawn using line symbol widths that reflected, at scale, the actual width of the road (as shown in the image to the left). This is a good cartographic solution because varying the line width adds hierarchy to the roads -otherwise it would be hard for you map reader to know which are wider or more heavily used. 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...

In the United States, the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is a way of subdividing land. The USGS topographic map symbols for displaying PLSS data are an excellent way to symbolize PLSS data on not only topographic maps, but because the topographic symbols are  so well recognized, the same symbols can be used on many other kinds of maps. In the image to the left, the "plus" marker symbol shows where a found corner is located, however, if no corner has been found, then no marker should be shown, leaving a gap that signifies the doubtful location of the corner. Next we will describe how to use cartographic representations to symbolize township, range, or section lines to leave a gap at the corners, allowing corners to be added (as point features) or gaps to be shown. 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...