Introduction to ArcPlot and AML
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5 Steps to Create a Map in ArcPlot
• Indicate the display method for the map -- on the computer screen or
on a graphics plotter.
• Specify parameters about the size and layout of your map to translate
coverage features from the computer to the display surface. These
include the final size of the printed map, the position of the geographic
features on the map, and the scale of the map.
• Specify the portion of the Earth’s surface to include in your map.
• Draw the geographic features you want on your map, and specify
which symbols to use for drawing and labeling them.
• Add additional cartographic elements to make your map easier to read
and understand. These include titles, legends, scale bar, north arrow,
and graphics.
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Establishing the Display Environment
Commands in Arc/INFO that use menus and display graphics on the
screen (such as in ArcPlot or ArcEdit) require you to establish the
display environment.
DISPLAY:
The command DISPLAY controls whether
&TERMINAL:
graphics are sent to your workstation’s display
(9999) or to a graphics file (1040).
the directive &TERMINAL is required to
invoke any AML menus during your session.
You can set these parameters interactively at the beginning of an ArcPlot
session, or store them in a station file. Station files are text files with
“stat_” prefix, for example, stat_9999
In Arc/INFO specify your devices and display parameters:
1. Interactively
display 9999 3
Display options
&term 9999
1
2
3
2. With a station file
&station 9999
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3
Optional Directive
&fullscreen - controls screen output of text by certain commands.
Usage: &FULLSCREEN <&ON | &OFF | &NOPAGING | &POPUP >
&ON - enables &FULLSCREEN mode. This is the default.
&OFF - disables &FULLSCREEN &NOPAGING or &POPUP mode.
&NOPAGING - enables &FULLSCREEN mode; however, text scrolls by
through the dialog area or popup window without paging.
&POPUP - displays dialog in a scrollable window.
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Getting Help
ARCPLOT contains more commands than any other ARC/INFO program.
• Get a complete listing of commands with COMMANDS:
– Arcplot: commands
• Get a listing of commands using a partial name:
– Arcplot: commands text
(will return all commands starting with text)
• Get a listing of commands using a wild card:
– Arcplot: commands *spot (will return all commands with “spot” at end)
• Get command usage:
– Arcplot: usage arclines
• Start ArcDoc for online documentation:
– Arcplot: help
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Layout
width
Graphics Page = pagesize
ymax
maplimits
height
ymin
xmin
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xmax
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Page Units versus Map Units
• PAGE UNITS are the units of measurement for the
graphics page, usually given as inches (default) or
centimeters.
• MAP UNITS are based on the real world coordinate
system (projection) of the coverage(s) being displayed.
They are nearly always specified in meters or feet.
• Some graphics commands (for example, BOX, CIRCLE,
and LINE) can draw features based on either the currently
set page units or map units. The command to switch
between these units in Arcplot is UNITS.
– Arcplot: units page
– Arcplot: units map
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Layout Commands: Graphics Page
The graphics page is that part of your device display canvas where graphics can be
drawn. By default, this is the entire display area.
• PAGEUNITS: Specifies what coordinate units will be used to specify
location points on the device display page.
– Arcplot: pageunits <inches | cm | pageunits_per_inch>
– By default, the PAGEUNITS is INCHES. This means that the MAPLIMITS and
PAGESIZE commands are given in inches, as are the coordinates for graphic
elements (for example, BOX, LINE, PATCH) and cartographic symbols
(LINESIZE, TEXTSIZE).
•
PAGESIZE: The graphics page area can be specified with the PAGESIZE
command. All ARCPLOT graphics will be clipped to this page dimension.
– Arcplot: pagesize < device | width height>
– The page size default is the device display page.
– PAGESIZE sets the width and height of the graphics page in the current
PAGEUNITS.
– In this way, you can design a large map on a small screen (and of course, when you
output the final map, the hardcopy is at the correct larger format).
•
PAGEEXTENT: Portion of the graphics page to be displayed.
– By default, PAGEEXTENT is set to the current graphics page size.
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Layout Commands: Map
• MAPUNITS: tells ArcPlot what coordinate units the coverages you will be
drawing are stored in. Default is inches.
– Arcplot: mapunits meters
• MAPLIMITS: specifies the area on your graphics page where data is drawn.
– By default, the entire PAGESIZE is used.
– Given in page units:
Arcplot: maplimits xmin ymin xmax ymax
– If you don’t specify a scale for your map (MAPSCALE), the data will draw
to fit neatly inside your specified MAPLIMITS area.
• MAPEXTENT: specifies the geographic area in real-world coordinates that
will be represented on your map.
– The map extent must be specified. There is no default MAPEXTENT.
– Use a single coverage
Arcplot: mape texas
– Use multiple coverages
Arcplot: mape tx ok ar
– Use coverage features
Arcplot: mape polys states
– Use map coordinates
Arcplot: mape xmin ymin xmax ymax
– Use interactive coordinates
Arcplot: mape *
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Layout Commands: Map, pg 2
• MAPSCALE: used to specify the denominator of the scale to draw the map.
You should use the MAPUNITS command before using MAPSCALE if the
coordinate units are different from the default inches. If you do not set a
MAPSCALE, ARCPLOT will draw the map as large as possible within the
available graphics page or MAPLIMITS by taking the maximum dimension of
the map and scaling it to the maximum dimension of MAPLIMITS or the
graphics page.
– Arcplot: mapscale 24000
(for a 1:24000 scale map)
• MAPSHIFT: will shift the map from the lower left corner of the map to the
specified position. Use this command instead of MAPLIMITS if you also use
the MAPSCALE command.
– Arcplot: mapshift <x_shift> <y_shift> { PAGE | MAP}
• MAPPOSITION: When coverage features are drawn inside the area
specified in MAPLIMITS, they are automatically positioned so that the lowerleft corner of the area to be drawn is placed at the lower-left corner of the
MAPLIMITS. If you do not want this, use MAPPOSITION command.
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Executing MAP-to-PAGE Transformation
• If you want to make a graphics file where the map extent of a coverage
fits exactly within a specified area of the page, use PAGESIZE,
MAPEXTENT, and MAPLIMITS.
• If you want to make a graphics file at an exact map scale, use
PAGESIZE, MAPEXTENT, MAPSCALE and MAPSHIFT.
• Getting Map-to-page information
To find the current settings use:
– Arcplot: mapinfo
- returns a report with all units specified
– Arcplot: show <parameter>
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- for a specific parameter
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Cartography
Cartographic design uses symbology and typography to convey
information that is both easily understood and visually appealing to the
map reader.
• Geographic features
– polygons
– arcs
– points
– labels
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• Cartographic features
- may be shaded,
patterned, or
displayed as outlines,
choice of color, width
- choice of line
color, width,
symbology
- choice of color,
marker type, size
- choice of font,
color, size, placement
– title
–
–
–
–
- choice of font,
color, size, placement
graphics - choice of color,
placement, width
legends
- need to be represent
geographic features
N. arrows - choice of style,
placement, size
scale bars - choice of style,
placement, size, color
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Using Symbology in ArcPlot
• Types of Symbols:
–
–
–
–
MARKER: for displaying points
LINE: for displaying arcs or outlines
SHADE: for filling in polygons
TEXT: for displaying annotation or text captions and
titles
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Symbolsets in ARCPLOT
• ARCPLOT comes with a set of ready-to-use default symbolset files
that are automatically read into ARCPLOT whenever you start a
session. These files are plotter.lin, plotter.mrk, plotter.shd and
plotter.txt. Each set features 100 symbols, made up of 25 different
patterns in the four hardware default colors 1 to 4. You can use any
symbol in the default symbolset file by specifying its number, 1 to 100
• These are the first four symbols in each plotter symbolset:
•
•
•
•
1 = white on black background, black on white background (default)
2 = red
3 = green
4 = blue
• The default sets are especially useful for maps that will be drawn on
four-color plotters.
• For example, in the default line symbolset, 31 is a green, dashed line
0.05 inches wide.
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Setting Symbol Sets
•
Sample of symbolsets available (some are hardware device dependent):
–
–
–
–
–
•
You can change symbol sets from the default “plotter” set by loading another set
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
plotter
(plotter.lin, plotter.mrk, plotter.shd and plotter.txt)
calcomp
carto
color
(provides 16 colors for each type symbol)
colornames
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
markerset <markerset_file>
lineset <lineset_file>
shadeset <shadeset_file>
textset <textset_file>
symbolset <symbolset_prefix>
You can repeatedly change symbol sets during an ARCPLOT session.
Only one symbolset for each symbol type (line, marker, shade, text) is current
(loaded into memory) at one time
Each symbol set can have up to 1000 different symbols identified by the
numbers 1-999. Location # 1000 is used to store the “current” symbol (see next)
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Specifying Symbols
•
You can set a fixed symbol for drawing coverage features by referencing a
symbol number:
– ArcPlot: markersymbol <symbol_number>
– ArcPlot: linesymbol < symbol_number >
– ArcPlot: shadesymbol < symbol_number >
– ArcPlot: textsymbol < symbol_number >
These become the “current” symbols (one for each type) and is stored in location #1000
•
•
The symbol determines pattern, color and size.
Example
– Arcplot: lineset carto.lin
– Arcplot: linesymbol 110
These commands set the current line symbol to be a black dashed line with a medium
thickness.
•
You can use the commands MARKERPUT, LINEPUT, SHADEPUT and
TEXTPUT to temporarily assign the “current” symbol to another number:
– Arcplot: linesymbol 110
– Arcplot: Lineput 1
Thus: linesymbol 110 has now (temporarily) replaced linesymbol 1
1 is the current line symbol number
however, symbol # 110 will be used
The lineset command will need to be re-issued to return to the original setup.
See the discussion of CLASS command for an application.
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Color
• You can override the color properties for the current symbol with these
commands
–
–
–
–
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
ArcPlot:
markercolor <color>
linecolor < color >
shadecolor < color >
textcolor < color >
• Color can be specified in three ways:
– a number from 0 to 7 (1 to 4, plus 5=cyan;6=magenta;7=yellow)
– by color name
(e.g. dodgerblue, forestgreen, firebrick - pg 144)
– by color model and component color values (e.g. RGB)
• Don’t forget that symbolsets come in 4 colors and a variety of shapes
and patterns, and are called by number.
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Other Symbol Properties
• SCALE: Symbol scales are set by default in page units. Can scale up
or down. For example, scale factor of 2.0 would cause symbols to
draw at twice their normal size, 0.5 for half.
– Arcplot:
markerscale <scale>
• PATTERN: refers to spacing of dots or lines, and texture in shade
symbols
• SIZE: determines the width and height of text and marker symbols,
the width of line symbols, or the grain of shade patterns.
– Arcplot:
linesize <width | * > set width in page units or interactively
• ANGLE: Markers and text can have a rotation angle applied.
– Arcplot:
markerangle < angle | *>
• Text - have a variety of options:
–
–
–
–
textquality:
textfont:
textstyle:
textjustification:
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constant or proportional
Times, Courier, Helvetica, etc.
underlined, italic, bold
LL, LC, LR, etc.
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Symbol Editors
• Four symbol editors provide a graphic interface that allows you to
quickly choose and modify a current symbol, edit an existing symbol,
or create new symbols and symbolsets.
• To access each editor
–
–
–
–
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
lineedit
markeredit
shadeedit
textedit
• Check your current symbols with the SHOW command
–
–
–
–
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
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show markersymbol
show markercolor
show linesize
show shadecolor
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Drawing Coverage Features
• Points
– Arcplot: points <cover>
(uses current marker symbol)
– Arcplot: pointmarkers <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
• draws points with a specific symbol identified by an item in the pat, or in a
lookup table, or using a symbol from the current symbolset.
• Arcplot: pointmarkers manholes 2
(red cross)
• Arcs
– Arcplot: arcs <cover>
(uses current line symbol)
– Arcplot: arclines <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
• Arcplot: arclines roads rd-code
• Polygons
– Arcplot: polygons <cover>
(draws poly outlines with current symbol)
– Arcplot: polygonlines <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
– Arcplot: polygonshades <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
(shade interiors with shade number or name)
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Drawing Coverage Features, page 2
There are three ways to select the symbol(s) to be used for drawing:
• Use one symbol to draw all features in a coverage
– Arcplot: arclines roads 2
(red line)
or
– Arcplot: linesymbol 2
– Arcplot: arcs roads
or
linecolor 2
• Use more than one symbol to differentiate coverage features by using
an attribute value stored within the feature attribute table:
Roads#
1
2
3
4
Roads-id
1
2
3
4
Rd-code
1
2
1
2
– Arcplot: arclines <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
– Arcplot: arclines roads rd-code
• Given this example, each road would be drawn with the symbol indicated by
its rd-code value, i.e., 1 is white and 2 is red.
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Drawing Coverage Features, page 3
• Use more than one symbol to differentiate coverage features by using a
lookup table. A lookup table is an INFO data file that contains two
items, one is defined and named the same an an item in the feature
attribute table, and the other item is named SYMBOL.
Roads#
1
2
3
4
Roads-id
1
2
3
4
Rd-code
1
2
Symbol
6
78
Rd-code
1
2
1
2
roads.aat = Feature Attribute Table
roads.lut = Lookup Table
– Arcplot: arclines <cover> < item | symbol> {lookup_table}
– Arcplot: arclines roads rd-code roads.lut
• The lookup table contains one record for each different value on the
item variable
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Drawing Legends
• To display a legend, a key legend file must be created.
• A key legend file is a text file created using the text editor of your
operating system.
• The file defines what to display in the legend - you must specify each
legend symbol, by number, along with its descriptive text.
– Example road surface file:
.6
Improved
.78
Semi-improved
• Commands:
– Keybox
– Keyposition
Naming convention <cover>.key
specify dimensions of the symbol in the key
specify location (upper left) on the page
– Keyline, Keymarker, Keyshade:
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The first line specifies line symbol
number 6 as the first symbol in the legend
Always precede the symbol number by a
period (.). The next line specifies the
text associated with the symbol.
draw the legend key
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Adding Map Elements
• Graphic Elements
– Graphic elements can be added with the line, box, circle, patch, shade or
marker commands, for example
• Arcplot:
box <* | xmin ymin xmax ymax >
• North Arrow
– The easiest way is to add a marker from a markerset provided with
Arc/INFO called north.mrk:
•
•
•
•
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
markerset north.mrk
markersymbol 12
markersize 1.5
(in pageunits)
marker <* | xy >
• Scale Bar
– Scale bars require the correct dimensions to provide an accurate scale
reference. You may want to develop an AML to provide this functionality,
or simply use a text scale such as 1:24000.
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Adding Map Elements, page 2
•
Text - Before adding text, set your text symbols and properties -- there are 28
commands for text style, alignment, font, etc.
Arcplot: commands text
– Placing text requires you to move to the location at which you wish to place text
with the MOVE command:
Arcplot: move < * | xy >
– Specify the text to be added:
Arcplot: text <text_string> { LL | LC | LR | CL | CR | UL | UC | UR }
Example:
Arcplot: units page
Arcplot: textset font.txt
Arcplot: textsymbol 3
Arcplot: textsize .35
Arcplot: textjustification ur (upper right)
Arcplot: move 5.5 0.625
Arcplot: text ‘Demonstration Map of Downtown Santa Fe’
It’s a good idea to to repeat these for every text item since they become the default
until changed. Analogous commands exist for marker, line, shade
-markerset, markersysmbol, etc. lineset, linesymbol, etc.
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Classification
• Class establishes a numeric classification used to assign symbols to
coverage features or events when they are drawn.
– CLASS <INTERVAL | QUANTILE> <cover> <feature_class> <item>
{number_of_classes}
INTERVAL - each class will contain an equal range of data values.
QUANTILE - each class will contain an equal number of data values
from the specified feature attributes or data records.
– CLASS MANUAL <number_of_classes> <break...break>
Requires setting number of classes, and the upper limit of all classes
except the last, which automatically becomes anything over the last
upper range. This results in one less upper limit than the number of
classes provided, for example:
• Arcplot: class manual <#classes> <upper_limit_1><upper_limit_2>...
• Arcplot: class manual 3 10 100
• Arcplot: class manual 5 50000 75000 100000 200000
Classes are assigned the numbers 1,2,3 etc
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Creating a Shaderamp
• After the command for classification, you can select colors to represent
each of these classes with the following code:
Shadeset colornames
shadecolor <name>
shadeput 1
shadecolor <name>
shadeput 2
shadecolor <name>
shadeput 3
shadesave <name>.shd
– shadesave saves the current shade symbols to a shadeset file or template
file that can be used in future Arcplot sessions; not needed if only need
this set (defined with shadeput) for this session.
• To use a color ramp
– SHADECOLORRAMP <start_symbol> <number_of_symbols>
<start_color_spec> <end_color_spec>
– Arcplot: shadecolorramp 1 10 red yellow
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Mapping Graduated Points: Ex 1
The code below, executed in arcplot, assumes a point coverage called city
containing a variable called pop2000. This variable will be divided into 3
classes with limits at 500,000 and 1,000,000. These classes will
automatically be labelled 1,2,3. Markerput assigns a selected symbol to
each of these classes, which are then displayed with the pointmarkers
command. (The initial readselect command, discussed in coverages
lecture, simply limits records to Texas cities.)
Readselect txcity.sel
Markerset plotter.mrk
markersymbol 81
markerput 1
markersymbol 82
markerput 2
markersymbol 83
markerput 3
class manual 3 500000 1000000
pointmarkers city pop2000
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Mapping Graduate Points: Ex 2
Another way to create graduated points in ArcPlot is by using RESELECT to make
repeated selects and mapping each.
• Readselect txcity.sel
• reselect city point pop2000 le 500000
• markersymbol 81
• points city
• clearselect
• readselect txcity.sel
• reselect city point pop2000 gt 500000 and pop2000 le 1000000
• markersymbol 82
• points city
• clearselect
• readselect txcity.sel
• reselect city point pop2000 gt 1000000
• markersymbol 83
• points city
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Using AML in ArcPlot:
•
•
Creating a Watch File
Commands entered during an Arcplot session are not saved unless you either create a
“watch” file or duplicate the commands in a text file, or AML. Using the AML saves
time because you can repeatedly run the set of commands instead of typing the
commands in again each time. You can modify the commands in the AML until you are
happy with the results.
To capture the commands in a watch file during the ARCPLOT session and then convert
them into an AML macro file when you are done:
– Step 1: Open a watch file
• Arcplot: &watch usa.watch
– Step 2: Enter commands to be captured
• Arcplot: display 9999
• Arcplot: &term 9999
• Arcplot: mape ………...
– Step 3: Close the watch file
• Arcplot: &watch &off
– Step 4: Convert the watch file to an AML file
• Arcplot: &cwta usa.watch usa.aml
– Step 5: Run AML in ARCPLOT
• Arcplot: &run usa.aml
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Using AML in ArcPlot, pg 2
•
Unfortunately, the above process of automated AML creation does not work
well ‘cos of the extra “junk” in the watch file which is not removed
– Its better to type the commands into a text file using a word processor!
•
Comment lines out of an AML with
•
“Debug” an AML with:
– turn echo off with:
•
/*
&echo &on;
&echo &off
You can use AMLs to automate and standardize the map production process.
For example, you may have a standard map layout format to which you want
all your organization’s ARCPLOT maps to conform. You can create one basic
macro that stores the commands that draw this template layout. This macro can
then be used in each ARCPLOT session to generate an entire series of maps.
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Minimum Commands to Display a Coverage
1. Specify your devices and display parameters:
Arc: display 9999
Arc: &term 9999
2. Start ArcPlot
Arc: ap
3. Set the map extent to the coverage
Arcplot: mape states
4. Draw the coverage features
Arcplot: arcs states (will draw with default symbol 1)
Arcplot: polys states
To clear your screen, give the command CLEAR; clear does not remove
your most recent drawing specifications (in this case, mape and
linecolor)
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Display Alternatives
Initiate plotting
Arc:
arcplot
Arcplot: display 9999
Arcplot: mape <cover> (establish map extent)
• For raster data:
Arcplot: gridpaint <filename> (for GRID)
image
(filename> (for Tiff or other image)
• For vector (outline only)
Arcplot: points <cover> (for points)
arcs <cover>
(for lines)
polys <cover> (for polygons)
or polygons <cover>
(the “s” is required on all these)
• For vector (shaded/differentiated)
Arcplot: pointmarkers <cover> <item|symbol#> (for graduated points)
arclines
<cover> <item|symbol#> (for differential lines)
polygonshades <cover> <item|symbol#> (for shaded polygons)
Basic logic is that item (variable) values, will be treated as symbol
numbers and drawn accordingly
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Zooming In
• Zoom functionality consists of resetting the mapextent, and
redrawing the map.
–
–
–
–
–
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
Arcplot:
mape europe
arcs europe
mape * (use cursor to drag box of area to zoom to)
clear
arcs europe
• To return to original mapextent give the command for the
original mapextent
– Arcplot: mape europe
• To record mapextent coordinates in an AML if the cursor
defines the location, use the SHOW MAPE command.
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Creating a graphics file
• While designing your map you will be working with your map as a
display on the computer screen. When finished, you can create a digital
file of the map, known as a graphics file
• Change the line in your AML that specifies the device:
• from:
• to:
display 9999.
display 1040
Then add the output file path and name immediately below this
• c:/usr/myname/map1.gra
(or just the name to put in same directory)
At the end of of the aml, add the command quit to close the .gra file
• Quit
– Re-run your AML to create the graphics file; you will not see a map on
your screen during this process.
– To see your output on screen, at the Arc prompt
• Arc: draw map1.gra 9999
• In addition to the Arc/INFO default graphics file, optional output file
formats include PostScript, Adobe Illustrator, and CGM.
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Printing Hard Copy
Basic approach is similar to creating a graphics file:
– Create print file from an aml
– Send print file to printer
•
•
to produce a print file in enhanced metafile format (.emf) from an existing aml
1. add "quit" command at end of aml to close .emf file
– .emf file will not be created otherwise
•
2. "comment out" any display 9999 commands
– Otherwise output goes to screen not print file
•
3. insert the two commands below
– display 1040 8
– myprint.emf
(often, you simply “uncomment” these lines)
•
•
•
4. run the aml (which will create a file called myprint.emf)
5. go to the menu where you started ARC, and start the print utility
6. select desired printer, and be sure to specify landscape or portrait mode as
appropriate
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Running a Sample AML for Arcplot
• A sample aml is available as follows:
– P:\p6382\ex2\giscity.aml
• Copy this aml to your own workspace (e.g. c:\usr\xxx)
• Run the aml
– &term 9999 (only needed once—sets up aml environment)
– &echo &on (messages routed to screen to help in de-bugging)
– &run giscity.aml
• Make changes to aml, and run again
7/12/2016 – UT Dallas
POEC 6382 Applied GIS Software
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