ArcGIS uses a font file to create a symbol library

Symbol Library Creation

ArcGIS has a variety of symbol libraries. I just graduated from the company and came into contact with the production of the symbol library. in the footsteps of my predecessors, I sorted out the steps to create a symbol library through character marker symbol.

Important Method: for a large number of manufacturing symbols, you can open the Style File In ArcMap and copy a symbol. After that, it is not a manufacturing symbol, but a change symbol! In this way, you can save time by selecting the corresponding symbol type and font library during the manufacturing process. You only need to change the font symbol in the style file corresponding to the font symbol in the corresponding library.

Since the ArcGIS Symbol Library is created through the font Symbol Library, the first thing is the font library (TTF format file ).

The used tool fontcreator6.0. The tool is easy to use. The following is the main interface of the software. You can set the toolbar of the main interface as needed (right-click the toolbar and select the desired one ).

As shown in the figure, an existing library (file-> open-> fontfile) is opened ). You can also create a new font library by yourself. It is best to create a new font library for a new project. Create a new font library and add a new one under the file (it is best to clear the font in the new library first, otherwise it will be too messy, haha ).

After the font library is available, you can add a new font file. Click the button on the toolbar to bring up the new font file dialog box.

Blue indicates used, and white indicates not used. Double-click the white grid and click "OK" to add a new file.

The bottom right corner shows the new blank file.

You can double-click a font file to create or add images. You can also copy images from other image files. This software allows you to directly copy edited font files. You can copy existing font files in the same main form or copy them from different projects.

When drawing a drawing on your own, you must specify the drawing range. Otherwise, opening the drawing in ArcGIS may make the drawing invisible. After testing, it is recommended that the image be between 0 and 0 ~ Between 2100, preferably under winscent above baseline. You can also make adjustments as required. (You can try multiple times to find the rule)

In the process of self-drawing, many images are spliced by multiple images. The included rectangle is composed of two rectangles. The overlapping part or overwrite or offset is determined by the border direction of the image. You can right-click the selected image, select change ction to change. Come and have a try!

In addition, we will not talk about the use of the software here. You will be proficient when you try more.

After the preparation, you can perform the following operations. First, install your own library. There are two methods:

1. Directly copy your own library file (TTF format) to the fonts folder on drive C windows.

2. Right-click the library file and select install.

In this way, your library file is successfully installed. We can use ArcGIS to call the fonts in the font library to create new symbols!

Open arcgis9.3 and enter style manager in styles in the tool bar. The style manager form is displayed.

If the style file already exists, click the style drop-down button and select Add at the end to add the local style file directory to style manager.

If there is no style file, click the style drop-down button and select creat new at the end to specify the New Style File storage directory and add it to stylemanager. (If you want to create your own symbol library, it is best to create a new style file. At least it won't be messy. I will use the previous demo here)

After adding the Style File, click the tree node and select marker symbol. The dot symbol of our file is displayed on the right. Of course, the newly created style file is empty after being clicked. Right-click the place where the symbol is displayed on the right and choose "New"> "markersymbol" to bring up a new dot symbol form.

Select character marker symbol as the type, and font as the name of the TTF file installed by yourself. The symbols in your TTF are displayed below. Default for others! (This is important !)

Select the image to be created for the symbol, and add it to it. The preview information is displayed in the upper left corner. You can click the button to zoom in to facilitate subsequent operations. Set the size of the symbol (which is the same as the standard size of ESRI ).

Units: Points

Size: 18

Units: inches

Size: 0.25

Units: milimeter

Size: 6.35

Units: centimeters

Size: 0.635

Generally, you can select points as the unit, which is convenient for input. Generally, do not set the angle option. You can set the color option as required.

Click the button to add a new layer. click the button to place it below. You can add this layer to the background and set its image to opacity. Otherwise, the white part of the image is transparent after the symbols are generated, affecting the appearance.

The shape, size, and position of the background image are generally the same as those of the symbolic image. You only need to block the white part of the original image. Of course, you cannot block it multiple times. This will not cause a white and opaque area on the edge of the generated symbol because of the large coverage of the background image, nor cause a transparent part of the symbol because the background image does not match.

You can set the color of the background image. If the symbol has a background color, set it to the color of the symbol background color. If not, set it to white.

In fact, the final analysis is to make a pair of font symbols at the same time. One is a symbolic image and the other is a background fill (in fact, first create one, and then copy one, ). The background fill must completely overwrite the blank area of the original symbolic image, but cannot exceed the area of the symbolic image. For some special graphics, such as those that do not close the blank area, you do not need to set the background layer. Such symbols are quite easy to understand.

Now you have created a symbol. Click OK to complete the preparation of the symbol.

Add a dot layer to ArcMAP, click the dot layer style, and select or add your own style file in more symbol, then you can view the completed symbols.

Is it a little excited! Haha!

Don't worry!

Finally, because most of the files used outside are serverstyle format symbol library files, we also need to convert our style format files to serverstyle format symbol library files.

My ArcGIS is installed on drive C. The path of the Conversion Tool is drive C-programfile-ArcGIS-utilities-make serverstyle set.exe. (You can find the installation directory by yourself. It's easy !), Just import your style file into serverstyle format. (Note: during the conversion process, it is best not to have Chinese characters in the conversion directory, otherwise it may easily cause failure)

Okay! This is the process of creating symbols! The following are some of my problems that have been solved or not yet solved. For more information, see.

1. Create a new character image. After copying the image (as the background image), it is found that the two locations in ArcGIS do not match! This is a headache and a waste of time to adjust the location. The reason is not found. It is only because the font file is copied when the file is copied, rather than the combined image in the file after the file is opened. This can reduce the occurrence of this phenomenon. In addition, if it does not match, re-create the symbol.

2. The image has been drawn in the font library, but it is not displayed when ArcGIS selects the image that participates in the symbol, only the original format of this file is displayed (that is, the drawing cannot be viewed through the file ). In fact, this does not affect our use, but it is not easy to find images. Restart ArcGIS and re-Add the file.

3. A Good Graph file is not completely displayed in ArcGIS. The solution is to re-adjust the font size in the font preparation software.

4. Changing the effect of the symbol color. When using the symbol, we can re-define the color of the symbol. There is a big problem here. For example:

The gray inside the circle is the background image. No matter how you change the color of the image, it becomes only the blue of the border, and the filled Gray will not change. Color changes can only be made in the above graphic layers, and the color of the background layer will not change. This problem has not been solved. Could someone please tell me!

Note that the lock on the right of the box controls whether the color of the symbol layer can be changed. The lock cannot change the color when the symbol is created.

Supplement: You can directly create symbols using fontcreator, you can also use image processing software such as Photoshop to create a BMP image and drag it directly to a font file or import it using the Import image tool under tools (it seems that only BMP format image files are supported, I tried several other commonly used image file formats ). This method is very useful for complex symbols, because it is very difficult to create complex symbols through fontcreator, and it is much easier to use Photoshop and so on. However, it should be noted that no matter whether the BMP Format Image contains several colors, only the white and black colors are available after being converted to the font file. Therefore, it must be the deeper color of the image and the lighter background color, the best way is to use solid color (red, black, blue, and other dark colors) for the image, and use white as the background color. The following figure shows the converted effects of images of different colors.

The converted results are as follows:

I have not tested the size of the BMP image, but this should not be affected, because it can be scaled up or down after conversion, here, the size of the BMP format file I used is 300*300.