11 replies to this topic

[Nick Springer]

I am having trouble with shields in Manifold. I can't get them to draw.

I have 2 colums of data, Shield Number, and Shield Type (which is a letter like "S" for State). I am drawing the Shield Numbers as a label layer and they show up fine. I then try to style these labels using a Theme of unique values of Shield Type and select the matching shield shapes.

But the shield shapes never draw. I tried apply a single shield shape to all labels without a theme to see if that was the issue but still no shields. Am I missing some setting somewhere?

[BEAVER]

I think you have to copy and paste to a separate layer and have one with the numbers and one with the shields.

I am having trouble with shields in Manifold.  I can't get them to draw.

I have 2 colums of data, Shield Number, and Shield Type (which is a letter like "S" for State).  I am drawing the Shield Numbers as a label layer and they show up fine.  I then try to style these labels using a Theme of unique values of Shield Type and select the matching shield shapes.

But the shield shapes never draw.  I tried apply a single shield shape to all labels without a theme to see if that was the issue but still no shields.  Am I missing some setting somewhere?

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[Nick Springer]

OK, as far as I can tell Manifold doesn't like to put shields on rotated labels, and indeed I don't want my shields to be rotated, I want the text to be horizontal. But, it seems that Manifold will only label roads along the road geometry and there is no option just place a simple label at the midpoint.

I have tried unlinking the labels and converting them to point features with no luck.

Unfortunately the GeoReference forums are now read-only because they are changing it again so I can't post there.

[Nick Springer]

Further research has led me to this: Manifold removed the ability to not link line labels to the line in 6.0 SP1 and therefore it is now IMPOSSIBLE to add shields to line labels! Aren't shields only used on line features? Someone wasn't thinking when they implemented that feature.

EDIT:
There is a workaround. Create a query to select the midpoint of each line:

SELECT LinePoint(ID, [Length (I)]/2),[ShieldType], [ShieldName] FROM [Roads]

Change [Roads], [ShieldType], and [ShieldName] to the names of the table and fields in your data.
Create a linked drawing from this and then label that new point layer.

[bchubb]

Unfortunately the GeoReference forums are now read-only because they are changing it again so I can't post there.

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As well, there is also Manifold-L which is still active... There's been lots of discussion about labels.

Manifold-l mailing list
Manifold-l@lists.directionsmag.com
http://www.direction...info/manifold-l

though it looks like you have figured it out now..... ( or )

[Nick Springer]

Thanks. I actually found the workaround on Manifold-L

[BEAVER]

I had the same problem on the road and stream names. I wanted the labels to be horizontal so that I can edit them later in AI. Unfortunatly all labels are rotated to the goemetry and there is no way to change that.

Unfortunately the GeoReference forums are now read-only because they are changing it again so I can't post there.

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As well, there is also Manifold-L which is still active... There's been lots of discussion about labels.

Manifold-l mailing list
Manifold-l@lists.directionsmag.com
http://www.direction...info/manifold-l

though it looks like you have figured it out now..... ( or )

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[Hans van der Maarel]

Nick,

Maybe I'm too late with this, but if you can send me your data I can see if I can generate a point dataset for you.

[Nick Springer]

Thanks, Hans, but you're right... I already generated a point set using the line midpoint method below.

Chris, that method should work for you too.

[BEAVER]

I'll try it when I get home. Thanks guys.

[BEAVER]

If I generate point from lines I end up with 26000 points and 26000 labels. I'm doing the Catskill Park region with 1600 miles of streams. There are 950 stream names. Most streams are broken into many lines. If I join them, I will loose half the names. There are streams with same names in different parts of the park so I can't filter out the names using Duplicate since that will erase other streams with the same name. I find Manifold very limited when it comes to labels. Is Mapublisher any better? After a month in Manifold I'm considering something else. My hand is killing me by clicking and deleting items that can't be filtered out. The software is great for everything else but not labeling. Also the icons are a joke. All they have is the shields. The point liberty does not have any mapping symbols. This is a mapping software is it not. At least give me the simple standard symbols for Gas Station, Parking, Camping sites, etc, etc. Am I missing something here?

[Martin Gamache]

This is a mapping software is it not.

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It's GIS software...not quite the same thing and you do get what you pay for.... No GIS software is going to do a perfect job of auto-labelling and Manifold (by their own admission) is probably the worst when it comes to this. There are alot of point symbol libraries floating around out there (including on the NPS website and Mapublisher's website) and it should be fairly easy to find what you are looking for, perhaps not implimented within Manifold but afterwards yes.

Good labelling is always going to require a certain amount of manual editing. Manual label editing is best done in illustrator where you have good, efficient and fast control over placement. It is tedious but very satisfying work. Mapublisher is not a great improvement over the most basic of GIS auto-labelling IMO. The stongest auto-labelling that I have worked with has been with Label EZ and Maplex, both of these work within the GIS environments as add-ons for ESRI's ArcMAP, MapInfo and other products. Both have their limitations and both are expensive.

For labelling purposes it is best to duplicate your line vectors (so that you work with a copy and not the original dataset), then simplify your line to reduce the numbers of nodes. Do some basic cleaning of the dataset prior to labelling. Those features with duplicate names can be modifed to have a suffix added on that can be removed through find and replace in a later stage, but which will allow you to remove duplicates without deleting all the labels. Look into dissolving the stream segments on the field containing the name to deal with the problem of small segments. You can then re-segment the vectors using a more appropriate distance.