Tag Archives: add
Marker fill symbols add realism to your maps
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
Another way to create polygon symbols that appear more realistic is to use marker fill symbols that mimic what you would see on the ground, but also to vary them so that they do not clip at the polygon edges (figures 1 and 2). Continue reading
Picture fill symbols add realism to your maps
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
The key to using a picture fill symbol when imparting realism is to choose one that has a random appearance. Another trick is to pick one that looks something like the type of feature you are mapping. A number of pictures are provided with ArcGIS, and many of them fit these criteria. Follow the steps below to see how you can apply this symbology on your maps using pictures provided by Esri. Continue reading
Polygon fill symbols add realism to your maps
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
When working with polygon data, it is common to symbolize these features with a colored fill and an outline (figure 1). However, if you are trying to create a realistic impression on your map, this symbology works against you. In the real world, we rarely see lines around areas, and the inside of those areas is rarely the same color everywhere. Continue reading
Stream tapering adds realism to your map
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
Stream tapering is a technique cartographers use to add realism to a map and help readers determine the direction of flow by using a wider line for downstream reaches than those upstream. Streams in nature vary in width due to things like flow, topography, or anthropogenic confinement. Tapering wider downstream lines into thinner ones upstream simulates the variation in stream width caused by increasing flow downstream. This method, which has long been used in cartography, is also described in Tom Patterson’s article, Getting Real: Reflecting on the New Look of National Park Service Maps on his web-site, Shaded Relief. Although he describes how he achieved the effect using Adobe Illustrator, this blog entry describes how you can use ArcMap to accomplish the same thing. Continue reading
Adding labels to ArcGIS Online web maps: Part 2
By Kenneth Field, Esri Research Cartographer
In Part 1 of this blog entry we showed you how to use the Feature Outline Masks tool to convert annotation feature classes to polygon feature classes in ArcMap which can then be added to your ArcGIS.com web map as an operational overlay. This is a great way of adding labels to your web map (figure 1).
Adding demographic data from ArcGIS Online to your maps
By Jim Herries, Cartographic Product Engineer
We got a good question the other day on Ask a Cartographer, so we thought we would share the answer here as well:
“I’m a VERY novice GISer. I work for a fire department. My Chief wants me to be able to add demographic layers to our district map, but when I look around, the maps are all “Google Earth” types or PDF files, which I can’t do anything with. Where and how do I get demographic data I can add to my map as a layer?”
Adding labels to ArcGIS Online web maps: Part 1
By Kenneth Field, Esri Research Cartographer
Labeling is important for most, if not all, maps so people can interpret and describe patterns they see and to relate them to places. In online web maps, labels are usually only seen as part of the basemap (and un-editable) or as part of the textual information in a pop-up (and un-seen until opened). But how do you add labels to features in ArcGIS.com Map Viewer so they appear as part of the map? In part one of this two-part blog entry we describe how you can make your own label operational overlays using the Feature Outline Mask tool on annotation feature classes in ArcMap to convert labels to feature geometry. When these are converted to shapefiles they can be added to web maps you make on ArcGIS.com without having to create and publish map services using ArcGIS Server. Part two of the blog entry will take the approach a stage further by showing you how to add symbols and other graphics to your map as feature geometry.
Most recent additions to Mapping Center – May 2011
By Aileen Buckley, Mapping Center Lead
We wanted to tell you about the most recent additions to Mapping Center.
First, we added some new content to the ArcGIS Resources – More page. A really exciting addition to this page is the DEM Data Sources Table – a fabulous resource you can use to determine what the maximum appropriate map scale is for various DEM data sources. Dr. Kimerling wrote about this in his recent blog entry. We also added the Coordinate System Decision Tree that you can use to find out why your data don’t line up in ArcGIS.
