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line_style

Line Style

The Line Style allows you to define how line features will be rendered on the map. Line styles offer numerous controls for color, gradient or pattern fills, dash patterns and many other properties.

Video Overview

Properties

Name - The name of the line style. Choosing a descriptive name can help you quickly identify styles when you are compositing many of them together.

Color - Controls the color and appearance of the line feature. The line can be filled with a color, gradient, hatch pattern or bitmapped texture.

Thickness - Sets the thickness of the line, in pixels.

Dash Pattern

Pattern Type - Selects whether to use a basic (predefined) dash pattern or create your own custom pattern. This selection governs the behavior of the Dash Style control.

Dash Style - Allows you to choose the dash style to be used.

  • If you have chosen a Basic Pattern Type, a dropdown menu will be presented that lets you select from one of the following options:
Option Description Example
Solid Draws a solid outline without dashing. The default setting.
DashDot Draws a dashed outline with a “dash-dot” pattern.
DashDotDot Draws a dashed outline with a “dash-dot-dot” pattern.
Dot Draws a finely dotted outline.
Dash Draws a dashed outline.
  • If you have chosen a Custom Pattern Type, then the Dash Style property will be displayed as a text box where you can enter your own custom dash pattern. Dash patterns are expressed as a comma-delimited list of pixel lengths. The first number represents the length of the first dash in the pattern. The next number represents the length of the first space after that dash, and so on. When the end of the sequence is reached, it repeats.

As an example, a custom Dash Style of 3,1,8,1 would produce a dash pattern consisting of a 3-pixel dash, a 1-pixel space, an 8-pixel dash and then a 1-pixel space, repeated infinitely. The result would look like this: Dash Pattern - Custom Example.png Dash Cap - For lines thicker than 1 pixel, the Dash Cap controls how each end of a dash is capped.

Option Description Example
Flat Applies a flat cap to each end of a dash.
Round Applies a rounded cap to each end of a dash.
Triangle Applies a triangular (pointed) cap to each end of a dash.

Advanced

X Offset - Sets the X offset of this style. A positive X offset will draw the style that many pixels to the right of the actual feature. A negative X offset will draw the style that many pixels to the left of the actual feature.

Y Offset - Sets the Y offset of this style. A positive Y offset will draw the style that many pixels below the actual feature. A negative Y offset will draw the style that many pixels above the actual feature.

Start Cap and End Cap - For lines thicker than 1 pixel, the Start Cap controls how the beginning of a line is capped, and the End Cap controls how the end of each line is capped. The following cap types are available:

Option Description Example
Flat Applies a flat cap.
ArrowAnchor Applies an arrowhead cap that is larger than the line thickness.
DiamondAnchor Applies a diamond-shaped cap that is larger than the line thickness.
Round Applies a rounded cap.
RoundAnchor Applies a circular cap that is larger than the line thickness.
Square Applies a square cap. The effect is that the line appears slightly extended.
SquareAnchor Applies a square cap that is larger than the line thickness.
Triangle Applies a triangular (pointed) cap.

Line Join - Determines what type of joint to draw at the point where one line ends and another begins. The following joint types are available:

Option Description Example
Miter Joins lines with a mitered (sharp) edge.
Bevel Joins lines with a beveled (squared off) edge.
Round Joins lines with a rounded edge.

Miter Limit - The maximum distance that a mitered joint can extend from the endpoints of a line. Reducing the miter limit may produce clipped corners. Only applies if a Line Join of “Miter” is selected.

Drawing Level - Forces this style to draw on a specific drawing level. The GIS Editor has a set of internal drawing levels that can be used to set rendering priority for certain styles. For example, labels are set to use the highest drawing level by default, so that they always appear on top of other map features regardless of what layer they're on. This enables you to add styles to any layer without worrying about them being covered up by other layers above them.

line_style.txt · Last modified: 2015/09/29 03:46 by admin