4 replies to this topic

[jbl]

(working with street maps, sort order of paths, sort of important)

When I export a layer as an .ai file it is sorted based on the table FID number for the object.
I can edit any other column data but not the FID. It is the database key identifier.
From the help file
"This key, which is maintained by ArcSDE, is unique for the spatial column"

If I could somehow edit this number I could re-arrange and have the layer data (in Illustrator) display in an order of my choosing.

As it is now the order (in Illustrator) is pretty much disjointed. No relation to alphabetical, geographical, nothing coherent.

This would be convenient, but not worth a great deal of work.

Suggestions appreciated.

[ELeFevre]

Can you modify the ID in MS Access?

[Unit Seven]

You can set up symbol levels (Layer properties > symbology tab > Advanced > symbol levels) in each levels symbology which will control which order the features are exported to Illy, or using definition queries to get appropriate features on separate levels will also control the resulting Illy file—if these levels are not in a group level you will also have them sorted in levels in Illustrator. Sometimes the definaition queries can start to slow the redraw down so it's often worthwhile having a layer (or group layer) with all your nice drawing options and ordering for your final output and another simplified one for your editing compilation.

Other than that it could be a bit tricky to mess with the FID I think. One option would be run through FME from shp–shp and I think there is a sort transformer which will process features based on your criteria so the resulting shp file should be sorted.

Hope that helps. If you are after more info on the symbol levels ask.

[frax]

What is it that you want to achieve? I assume you have some other attribute that you want to use for the stacking - what about coloring the features based on this attribute, and then use that for rearranging the paths in Illy (select by color is a very handy thing - I have it mapped to a hotkey)

[jbl]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. As I said, the object of this was convenience and not worth a lot of extra work.
The question was asked, 'What is it that you want to achieve?'
In Illustrator, the layer panel, in the paths group, displays a thumbnail of the path and <path> as the object name,
I want to be able to have the paths labeled by the name of the street <Armour Blvd>. See the attached image.

This particular group started out in ArcGis as about 1,000 or more features. I reduced that amount to 19 by merging features of the same street as long as there was no major change of direction. A direction change or a curve requires a new object.

The reason that all of this is helpful is that I have a base map layer of all of the necessary city streets. Then I have multiple layers, each of a city bus route. Some streets have multiple bus routes running along the same path and then I need to adjust (spread out) the bus paths so that all are legible (also in attached image). I tried adjusting the path offset in ArcGis but that was not working very well.

The quantity by category in Symbology looks promising, as suggested (using symbol layers) by creating a copy of the layer, then each object will be of a different color and therefore selectable (they are all the same in the original layer)

The original layer uses the colored dot symbol and the bus route number as a label. I have also tied a duplicate layer using the [FULLNAME] of the street as the label, and then deleting the extra street paths group caused by the duplicate layer and this seems to help also.

Attached Files

•  ai_bus_routes.gif   37.31K   31 downloads