Styling Areas

Specify the fill style and color, background color, edge style and color, and line thickness used to draw polygon features. Your style options vary, depending on whether you are using enhanced styles or standard styles. See Using Enhanced and Standard Styles.

Note:

To add labels to features, see Adding Labels to Features.

Note:

Set default size context and units in Options. For more information, see Setting Layer Editor Options.

Using Enhanced Styles

Enhanced styles are available only for newly created layers or layers from AutoCAD Map 3D that were styled using enhanced styles. In order to use enhanced styles, you must set an option on the Layer Editor tab of the Options dialog box. See Using Enhanced and Standard Styles.

To apply enhanced styles to areas

1. Open the layer to edit by doing one of the following:
   • Create a new layer.
   • Double-click an existing layer.
   • Click the layer’s tab if the layer is already open.

   For information about creating a new layer, see Creating New Resources. For information about associating a data resource with a new layer, see Specifying the Data Resource for a Layer.

2. In the Style pane of the Layer Editor, under Scale Ranges, select the scale range to style.

   For more information about scale ranges, see Understanding Scale Ranges.

3. In the Area Style area for the selected scale range, for Style Of The Geometry, click […].
4. In the Style Area dialog box, specify the size context and units of measurement for the style.

   Select Device to specify label widths and heights in screen units. Available units are Points, Inches, Millimeters, or Centimeters. Select Map to specify label widths and heights in Mapping Coordinate System (MCS) units. Available units are Inches, Feet, Yards, Miles, Millimeters, Centimeters, Meters, and Kilometers. These settings are used for all elements in the style, not just for selected ones.

5. Add any desired fills and border elements to the style and use the graphical area to adjust their positions.

   Click Add Fill and Add Border to add elements to the style. You can include multiple fills and borders in a single style.

   The graphical area shows the elements and the order in which they will appear. Elements at the bottom of this area are at the bottom of the draw order. Select an element in the graphical area to change its position, appearance, and content. Use the arrow keys to change the position of the selected item. To delete an item, select it and click X.

   To create a pattern style with symbols, select a pattern fill and then select the symbol that will comprise the pattern.

   For compound symbols, click + to see the simple symbols that comprise it. You can format each simple symbol. You can reposition compound symbols, but not the simple symbols within them.

6. Select each element in the style to change its appearance.

   The options change, depending on what is selected. Use the style options below the graphical area to specify the polygon outline attributes. When a fill element is selected, use the style options below the graphical area to specify a pattern or solid fill. If you select a pattern, you can construct the pattern using symbols. Select any graphical symbol to use and its size and rotation. You can specify fill color and transparency for both solid and pattern fills. If you use a symbol graphic that includes text, text styling options are also available.

   Note: You can use an expression to specify most styling options. If you use an expression to specify width, height, offset, or repeat interval, a scaling factor is included in the expression. This scaling value converts your expression to a value that can be used as width, height, offset, or interval. The factor is calculated and inserted automatically. Do not change or delete it in the expression.
7. Click Advanced to specify settings for the following:
   • Symbol Clipping: Whether symbols that display at the edges of the polygon are cut off at the boundaries (clipped, which is the default), moved inside the boundaries, or extended beyond the boundaries. If you set a Buffer Width, the clipping will be relative to the buffer, rather than the polygon boundary.
   • Origin Control: Whether the symbols align on a grid that covers the entire map (Global, which is the default), whether that grid is specific to each polygon (Local), or whether the grid is anchored at the polygon centroid (Centroid)
   • Origin:If you set the Origin Control to Local or Centroid, you can offset the symbol grid by specifying x and y coordinates for the offset. By default, this is 0.
   • Angle Control: Whether symbol orientation is determined by the feature geometry or by the angle you specify.
   • Symbol Repeat: The horizontal and vertical separation between symbols. By default, this is 0.
   • Buffer Width: The width of the buffer zone, relative to the polygon boundary, in which the symbol is rendered. By default, this is 0.
8. Click OK.

Using Standard Styles

All existing layers that were styled with standard styles originally will continue to use standard styles.

You can create symbol libraries that contain custom area styles. In symbol libraries you can use Bitmap (BMP), Device Independent Bitmap (DIB), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), TrueType Fonts (TTF), Windows Metafile (WMF), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG/JPEG). Create your own symbols in AutoCAD Map 3D or another application and then import them into Infrastructure Studio. For information on creating symbol libraries, see Creating a New Symbol Library.

Symbols can contain four types of elements:

• Images
• Text
• Lines
• Polygons

You cannot modify images. However, you can override the fill colors of polygon elements, the color of line elements, and the color of text elements. If a symbol element contains multiple colors (for example, a line element with three segments, each a different color), overriding applies the same color to all parts of the element.

To apply standard styles to areas

1. Open the layer to edit by doing one of the following:
   • Create a new layer.
   • Double-click an existing layer.
   • Click the layer’s tab if the layer is already open.

   For information about creating a new layer, see Creating New Resources. For information about associating a data resource with a new layer, see Specifying the Data Resource for a Layer.

2. In the Style pane of the Layer Editor, under Scale Ranges, select the scale range to style.

   For more information about scale ranges, see Understanding Scale Ranges.

3. In the Area Style area for the selected scale range, for Style Of The Geometry, click […].
4. To fill polygons, in the Style Area dialog box, select the Apply Fill To The Area check box.
5. For Fill Pattern, select Solid or a pattern.
   • If you specified Solid fill, specify Foreground Transparency and Foreground Color.
   • If you specified a pattern fill, specify colors for Foreground Color and Background Color. If you do not want a background color for the pattern, click Transparent for Background Color.
     Note:

     In polygons with transparent backgrounds, the colors you see on the map may differ from the colors displayed in the preview frame because the preview frame always uses a white background, which may differ from the color beneath the transparent objects in your map.

6. To add borders to polygons, select the Apply A Border To The Area checkbox and then do the following:
   • For Line Pattern, specify the pattern for the area border.
   • For Size Context, select Map Space to specify the size in standard real-world units (inches, feet, yards, miles, milimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers) or Device Space to specify the size in screen units (points, inches, milimeters, centimeters).
   • For Units, select the type of units to use to measure border thickness.
   • For Line Thickness, specify a thickness for the area border.
     Note:

     Select 0 thickness to draw the border as thin as possible.

   • For Line Color, specify a color for the area border.
7. Click OK.
8. Click File menu Save.