Esri Mapping Center - Ask a Cartographer

Polygons and Symbols

August 01 2008 | 2 comments
Categories: Symbology

Is there a way to represent a polygon as symbols in the layout map. So far I can only represent polygons by fill colors, what I want to do if possible is to turn a polygon into a picture symbol such as grapes, cherries, walnut and etc. symbols that matches its crop attributes. Can it be done in Arview 9.1.

Thanks

Mapping Center Answer:

Yes, what you'll want to use is a picture fill symbol. We have a help topic called, Creating Fill Symbols, that describes the basic method. I'm pretty sure we don't supply pictures of fruits and nuts for to use for your picture fill, so all you'll need to do is supply the pictures as either .BMP or .EMF files.

Fill Symbols posted by Ferdinand Pura on Aug 4 2008 10:48AM

Fill Symbols fills in the polygon with the pictures, however I cannot make the picture fit in perfectly within a polygon, some pictures expands or get cut off the polygon outlines. Is there a way to transform a polygon into the shape of the .emf picture or do I have to trnaform thepolygons into a point to make that happen in Arcview 9.1?

Thanks

Convert to Point posted by Charlie Frye on Aug 4 2008 6:11PM

Since you really just need to have one symbol per polygon, I would suggest using the Feature to Point tool, but that requires an ArcInfo license.

So instead, you can use the Graduated Symbols symbology, which, for polygon features will display a single marker symbol on top of the polygon. It's a stretch, in terms of a workaround, but it will do the trick--though you may have to create a numeric field to symbolize on.

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