Thematic visualisation

Thematic visualisation
 
Thematic visualisation is the way in which a data layer is displayed on a map.  There are many ways of visualisation.  MapAble offers the user three different ways of displaying data in the View Pane.
1

Single symbol

1. Single symbol
 
The Single Symbol is the most simple way of displaying a layer.  Only one foreground color and one outline color are used to display a layer.  Different toolsets are available for different polygon types. The following tools will assist the user to prepare a single symbol layer:
 

Polygons

Polylines

Points
 Line colour
The line colour refers to the outline of polygons.  Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Fill colour:
The fill colour is the colour of the body of the polygon. Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Line width:
The outline width can be set by using the arrows .
 
Transparency:
The Transparency can be set from 0 to 255 of which 0 = No Transparency
 
Hatch style:
MapAble offers the user a range of Hatching styles.  Click on the dropdown button to view all styles.
 
Hatch background colour:
The hatching color can be set here.  Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
 
 
 Line colour
Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Line width:
The line width can be set by using the arrows .
 
Transparency:
The Transparency can be set from 0 to 255 of which 0 = No Transparency
 
Line Border
An additional line border can be set in the tickbox to mask the line for better readability.
 
Border colour:
The line border colour can be set here. Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
Icon
This is the icon to be displayed on the map.  This will normally be the same as the Icon in the menu item.  Choose an appropriate icon and upload it to the server.  To assist users, MapAble has a set of icons which can be used by all users.  Please go to the MapAble website and download it.
 
Icon width and height:
This get automatically filled in when the icon is uploaded.  The user can however change the size to make it smaller.  It is not ideal to make it larger because the icon image will pixelate and result in a poor map.
 
Icon anchors X & Y:
This is the position where the icon will anchor relative to the centre of the spatial point.  This is normally set to be the centre of the image, but can be changed if necessary.  The centre position is normally the middle of the width and height number
 
Icon shadow:
A shadow can be set for each icon by ticking the tickbox.
 
Cluster points:
If a point layer causes a map to be too busy.  they can be displayed as cluster points instead.  Cluster point shows a group of spatially clustering points as a single point with a colour code.
 
Preview:
This shows how the icon will be displayed on the map.
 
 
 
 
 
2

Unique values

2. Unique values
Unique values are applied when data layers have a number of explicit classes (e.g. Province names, Geological types).  Different toolsets are available for different polygon types. The following tools will assist the user to prepare a unique value layer:
 

Polygons

Polylines

Points
Select field
The user need to select a field in the attribute table where the unique values reside.  Click on the dropdown box to choose.
 
Values:
The list of unique values will be displayed in the list box after the field was selected.
 
 Line colour
The line colour refers to the outline of polygons.  Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Fill colour:
The fill colour is the colour of the body of the polygon. Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Line width:
The outline width can be set by using the arrows .
 
Transparency:
The Transparency can be set from 0 to 255 of which 0 = No Transparency
 
Hatch style:
MapAble offers the user a range of Hatching styles.  Click on the dropdown button to view all styles.
 
Hatch background colour:
The hatching color can be set here.  Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Load Palette:
Predefined colour palettes can be loaded from here to automatically do the colours of all the unique values.  The user click on the Load Palette button to open a list box to choose from:
 
From here the outline can also be customised.
 
 
 
 
Select field
The user need to select a field in the attribute table where the unique values reside.  Click on the dropdown box to choose.
 
Values:
The list of unique values will be displayed in the list box after the field was selected.
 
 Line colour
Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Line width:
The line width can be set by using the arrows .
 
Transparency:
The Transparency can be set from 0 to 255 of which 0 = No Transparency
 
Line Border
An additional line border can be set in the tickbox to mask the line for better readability.
 
Border colour:
The line border colour can be set here. Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
Select field
The user need to select a field in the attribute table where the unique values reside.  Click on the dropdown box to choose.
 
Values:
The list of unique values will be displayed in the list box after the field was selected.
 
Icon
This is the icon to be displayed on the map.  This will normally be the same as the Icon in the menu item.  Choose an appropriate icon and upload it to the server.  To assist users, MapAble has a set of icons which can be used by all users.  Please go to the MapAble website and download it.
 
Icon width and height:
This get automatically filled in when the icon is uploaded.  The user can however change the size to make it smaller.  It is not ideal to make it larger because the icon image will pixelate and result in a poor map.
 
Icon anchors X & Y:
This is the position where the icon will anchor relative to the centre of the spatial point.  This is normally set to be the centre of the image, but can be changed if necessary.  The centre position is normally the middle of the width and height number
 
Icon shadow:
A shadow can be set for each icon by ticking the tickbox.
 
Cluster points:
If a point layer causes a map to be too busy.  they can be displayed as cluster points instead.  Cluster point shows a group of spatially clustering points as a single point with a colour code.
 
Preview:
This shows how the icon will be displayed on the map.
 
 
 
 
3

Class breaks

3. Class breaks
When mapping quantities, it is normally better to classify them in classes.  When you classify your data, you can use two standard classification methods provided in MapAble, or you can manually define your own custom class ranges. This topic describes these classification methods:
 
 

Polygons and Polylines
 
           
 
 
Select field:
The user need to select a field in the attribute table where the unique values reside.  Click on the dropdown box to choose.
 
 Border colour:
The border colour refers to the outline of polygons.  Click on the button to get colour options or type in any HEX color code of choice
 
Calculate:
To calculate the classes the user clicks first on the Calculate Button.  The following screen will appear:
 
The user selects the number of classes, the method between Linear (Equal intervals) and Quantiles, and the start and end colours of choice.  The user can still manually edit the colours from the Values display.
 
Save colours:
The user can save a colour set by using the save colours button.  The following input box will appear:
 
 
Load colours:
All save colour palettes can be loaded afterwards by using the load colours button from where a list of colours palettes will be shown
 
 
Values:
The final legend values and colours can be viewed in the values box.  The user can still edit the colours as well as the values from the Values box itself.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4

Save style

4. Save style
A style is a file that remembers all the visualisation settings of a particular layer.  The user can save the style with an appropriate descriptive name:
 
5

Load style

5. Load style
A saved style can always be opened for later use by opening the Load style button:
 
 
The user can select the style and the layer's visualisation setting will change accordingly.
 
 
Please note: 
A saved style can only be re-applied to the same layer.  All the saved settings are only applicable to the structure of the specific layer it was build upon.