Latest Contributions by JimW1

When i insert a power point slide with the street index i have created it does weird things with the words. does anyone have an idea on how to resolve this issue? i attached an image. thanks.. Try pasting the index into excel first and then from excel into PowerPoint. Something funky happens with the kerning sometimes and I don't know for sure but I think it is a Windows problem. ... View more

It is the default because I join tables with identical field names all the time and the only way to tell which field I am referencing is by using the full name.  Also, ObjectID, which I also use in queries, is identically named in both tables.  Context would not make the name clear to anyone without the fully qualified name.  Beside, computers know nothing of context and suck at ambiguity, unless a programmer, who has no idea what your join actually looks like, programs it with intelligence that matches your logic if you are allowed to input ambiguous data.  Every time such logic has to be added the speed of the program decreases, sometimes significantly. Joins work wonderfully for me, but probably because I only use file geodatabases or SDE and not shapefiles or Excel.  The Model Builder Environment can set outputs to be without the fully qualified name, which is necessary if you insist on being a dinosaur and using shapefiles.  It is found in the Fields Environment settings in Model Builder.  If you change that setting using the Geoprocessing > Environments menu that setting will become your default. That's quite unfair of a response. I can assume you did not read this thread nor do you work much outside of the ESRI environment in databases. ... View more

So much time has passed on this thread and I now sit in 10.1 with joined field names that will only 'Maintain Fully...' Is there a practical use for this? Why is it the default? The joins are still a mess and now Model Builder likes to lock itself. There's only one instance of ArcMap open but if I don't manually refresh the table views (by opening the tables from the TOC) it'll lock up on me. Could someone please tell me why you'd want your field name to be something like [TEMP_PIVOT_GROUPBYFID.FID_Buildings] instead of [FID_Buildings]? I'm at a loss as to how anyone who'd be doing a join in Model Builder wouldn't know the source tables nor could look at the inputs to Model Builder to figure them out. Why is this the default since 10? What big ESRI customer asked for this change and why does it persist? Enough ranting. Cheers to those that feel my pain. ... View more

I'd also like to add that if you have enough patience you can make sexy looking maps in ArcMap too. I often have 6 versions of the same layer just to make a cool effect. I build cartographic-use only layers all the time that make the overall feel of the map much more modern looking. It's quicker to do many of these in Illustrator but then you have to train GIS peeps to learn AI. Cartography by cartographers isn't dead... it's just taking a nap while web-based GIS is all the rage. PS: You can also go from AI to CAD to GIS if you are ever desperate. ... View more

Change the Output Image Quality to 4 or 5 (Resample Ratio). Also, try deleting your Bing maps cache. ArcMap does some weird things with rasters in the export engine. There's a few threads floating around with other people going through this pain. I've permanently disabled basemap (Bing) layer caching and that makes the export work fine 99% of the time. ... View more

I would recommend turning off 'scan network files' on your anti-virus. We've found this is the performance culprit on local networks and FGDB. Everytime the FGDB does something it creates a file or a lock file or a change file or whatever the FGDB (Arcinfo Coverages 2.0 as I call it) is doing in the background. Some virus scanners lose their brains trying to keep up. We've abandoned FGDB because they are unrealiable on our already unreliable corporate IT network. It's a perfect storm. No issues with PGDB or ArcSDE (except when the corporate network is slow  of course). ... View more

To avoid a complicated solution I would suggest this little band-aid workaround I discovered: Go to the line properties of the dashed line and change 'Line Caps' and 'Line Joins' both to Round. Then under the template tab set the template to: WWWBBBWWW or to just WWWBBB W- White B- Black The important part is putting the white gap squares at the beginning of the template. This will make the dashes look better but not perfect. ... View more

You can use a gradient fill with the 'buffered' style. You'll have to play with each one to make it look good but it's easily doable with some patience and colour wheel magic. With complex polygons this terribly slows down the draw speed of your MXD so I'd wait until you have everything else done before adding this cartographic effect. The attached image I did under 5 minutes. The colour are horrible so if you use some actual colour theory on the gradient colours you can make a good looking map. ... View more

How about just making the border lines 11pt? There is a ROI curve for cartography and having thicker divisions than outer boundaries seems pretty steep for a simple cartographic trick. Now I must say I don't usually listen to my own advice and I'd totally waste 3 hours trying to get this to work. ... View more

My suggestion is to remove the outline on the hatch and decrease the seperation of the lines to give the overlay better definition. They'll cope without an outline (from experience). If you are really worried about losing the outline, add another version of the layer under the hatch and make it solid white with no outline. Then set the transparency and the colours of the other polygons should bleed through but your hatched are will still have definition. ... View more

You should give yourself a check for 'question answered'. I ran into this same problem last year but I couldn't remember the workaround. Thanks for posting the solution. ... View more

I'd use ArcScan and convert the raster to vectors. On old maps this is a long and tedious process (that I do not miss doing). There are a few other non-ESRI products that aren't bad but ArcScan is really the fastest. You'd still need to assign an elevation to each contour manually. I'd also suggest taking the TIF into photoshop and first converting it into a black and white image (not greyscale but actual binary black and white) and then manually erase everything that isn't a contour - title blocks, rivers, buildings, etc.. The more noise you erase, the less time you'll spend on vector conversion. I'd also run it through a 'sharpen edges' filter to try to thicken the lines up. Then run the new tif through arcscan and create vectors. Then you'll have to manually assign the elevation values to each vector or just ignore that part if you don't actually need elevations. Then you can make your dxf. ... View more

While I was working in Jordan a graphic artist argued with me to change our mapping from yellows and oranges to blues and greens. I refused and the GA did it anyways over a weekend. The Jordanians were not pleased as desert colours are more appealing to them then Canadian forest colours. I use: http://www.perbang.dk/rgb/0065BD/ I make most maps and colour ramps from Pantone 300 which is our corporate colour. Most people don't even notice that all of the colours are in the same family as the logo. I would recommend either using your corporate colours or spy on your manager's office and see what colours he/she likes. My current Director loves garish colours on a muted background while the last one hated purple. "This mapping shows where we can maximize our return on investment down to sub-metre accuracy" "Can you make the streets less gray?" The life of a GIS... ... View more

I suggest formatting in Excel and then 'Copy' and 'Paste Special' as a picture into ArcMap. I've given up on editable tables in the layout view. ... View more

I never got it to work. I'm pretty sure it's related to me changing my email on my ESRI global account. I did not email ideas@esri.com because... well it's the Ideas site. ... View more