Click OK and once the tool has finished the polygon feature class of your labels will be added to ArcMap.įigure 5. Ordinarily the tool is used to create mask polygons at a specified distance and shape around features but defining these parameters in this way creates polygons exactly the same shape as the input layer, creating a replica of your labels as polygons. Set the Mask to zero and the Mask Kind to EXACT. The only two parameters that will need changing are the Margin and Mask Kind. Select your annotation feature class as your Input Layer and define an Output Feature Class. First, locate and run the Feature Outline Masks tool in System Toolboxes > Cartography Tools > Masking Tools (figure 5). For this, you use the Feature Outline Masks tool to convert the geometry of the label outlines to polygons in a new polygon feature class. Your labels are now stored as an annotation feature class but for the web map they need to be stored as feature geometry. Converting annotation to feature geometry Convert labels to an Annotation Feature Class.Ĥ. The annotation feature class will then be added to your Table of Contents.įigure 4. In the subsequent dialog box, store your annotation in a database and select an appropriate feature class name. ![]() Once you have your labels designed appropriately, right click the layer in the Table of Contents and select Convert Labels to Annotation. (read About Displaying Labels for more information).įigure 3. ![]() The labels for the RISK map need to be seen when the map is viewed as a whole so a reference scale of 1:125,000,000 was used (figure 2), they were based on feature attributes, and added to the map using the Label Manager. Design your labels so that they function at an appropriate reference scale which fixes the size of text and symbols to draw at the desired height and width at that scale. In ArcMap data view, you can now label features as you would normally do to alter the font, size and position (read Essential Labeling Concepts for more details on labeling maps in ArcMap). Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere selected in ArcMap Data Frame Properties. The map projection is set in the Layer Properties (figure 2) and will ensure that subsequent processing steps will create graphics that display correctly when they are eventually added to your web map.įigure 2. Because the operational overlays will be published on you first need to ensure that the map is set up in ArcMap using the Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere projection. The starting point for creating operational overlay data for your web map will most likely be ArcMap, in which the map in figure1 was created (the connectors you can see are part of the map’s design for the game). World map in the style of the RISK board game. ![]() It could also be argued that the map looks bare or incomplete without labels but since they do not relate to real-world geography it’s unlikely that any published basemap service labels will be useful.įigure 1. You could add them as pop-ups but they require the map reader to have to work harder than necessary to discover basic information that the map should display by default. ![]() contains boundaries that are not coincident with any obvious geography so it requires unique labels.Īs figure 1 shows, the pseudo-political geography of the map is hard to describe without labels.is composed entirely of continuous polygons which obscures the basemap and labels (and which acts as the basemap itself) and.This map provides a good case study because it: To demonstrate the technique, we’ll use a world map designed in a similar style to RISK, the board game originally produced in France in 1957 (figure 1). 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. When these are converted to shapefiles they can be added to web maps you make on without having to create and publish map services using ArcGIS Server. But how do you add labels to features in 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. 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). Labeling is important for most, if not all, maps so people can interpret and describe patterns they see and to relate them to places.
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