Name Placement

Please write you name here ___________________________ (Print or copy to Word to fill out if you work on a digital version of this exercise.)

Estimated time:

Task

Time (minutes)

Introduction and preparation

15

ArcGIS placement instruction  

5

Manual placement exercise

15

Maplex placement exercise

10

Finishing

10

Total

55

Introduction

You will use GIS tools to put labels on a map with clustered places (cities and towns) in this lab. The objective is to let you understand the cartographic principles and issues of placing labels on maps and teach you how to use GIS tools to accomplish the task. The sequence of lab exercise includes filling one pre-exercise and one post-exercise survey and using two ArcGIS labeling tools and one manual interactive tool to carry out the name placement task. This will be a timed lab, please follow instructor or TA’s instructions to finish this lab.

Instructions

You will need the following data and tools to finish this lab. Please do the followings.

  1. You need the ArcGIS Maplex extension to accomplish this task. Start ArcMap and click on “Tools -> Extensions”. Check the Maplex extension and close the extensions dialog window. If you don’t find the Maplex extension, that means it wasn’t installed on that computer. Please check with your ArcGIS license manager to see if your campus has a license for Maplex.
  2. You will need the files listed below for this exercise. A zipped document containing these files is available here (NamePlacement.zip). You will need to decompress it to your working folder (e.g., c:\users\your_name). Notify the instructor/TA if you cannot copy these files to your working folder.

maps.mxd (This is an ArcMap document containing a map layout.)

city_bnd shapefile (The Portland city boundaries.)

place_names shapefile (The point feature class containing the names of  places.)

hillshed raster grid (A terrain hill-shading raster used as map background.)

vegraster raster grid (A vegetation cover raster used as map background.)

 

Step I. Pre-exercise survey

Now, go to Name Placement pre-exercise survey and complete the questionnaire.

 

Step II. Manually placing name labels

  1. You will manually place the name labels of the place point features on the map. The goal of this exercise is to create a map whose labels are legible, none-overlapping, and unambiguously associated with the points representing the locations of the places.
  2. Double-click the maps.mxd to open it in ArcMap. There are four layers in the ArcMap Table of Contents (TOC). Select Layout View from the View pulldown menu to switch to the layout view, which shows the WYSIWYG representation of the layers in a map frame. You can select the Data View item in the View menu to switch back to the data view. You will need to switch between the data and layout views a couple times in this exercise.
  3. Double-click the place_names layer in TOC to open the Layer Properties dialog window. Click on the Labels tab and then check the Label features in this layer checkbox. Make sure NAME is the label field and size 8 Arial is the font. Click Placement Properties button and check the Offset label horizontally around the point checkbox on the Placement tab and check the Place overlapping labels checkbox on the Conflict Detection checkbox. Click OK to dismiss the Placement Properties window. Then click OK to dismiss the Layer Properties window. Now you should see the name of places are labeled on the map.
  4. Open the Layout toolbar from the View -> Toolbars menu. The toolbar contains tools to let you zoom-in, zoom-out, and move the map layout. Use these tools to inspect the design and areas where the labels are not legible due to overlapping. You will find a lot of illegible labels near the south part of the city boundaries. You will use the procedures that follow to correct the problem.
  5. Right-click on the place_names layer in the TOC and select Convert Labels to Annotation. In the dialog window that appears, check the appropriate option so that the annotation will be stored in the map. Click Convert to continue.
  6. Switch the view to Data View. Now can use the Select Elements tool in the Standard toolbar to move individual annotation names you just created. You can use the zoom-in, zoom-out, and pan tools to change the scale of the display map frame. If you have disassociated an annotation name with a point, you can use the Identify tool in the Standard toolbar to figure out the place name of the point.
  7. You need to switch to the Layout view to get the WYSIWYG presentation of the map. Make sure you click the Full Extent tool in the standard toolbar so that the map shows the complete area to be mapped.
  8. Try steps 6 and 7 a couple times to make sure you know how to move an annotation and see the resulting map in the Layout View. Ask the instructor or TA if you have any question.
  9. Now STOP and wait for instructions.

 

STOP +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP

 

  1. You will spend 15 minutes to rearrange the place name labels on the map. Your goal is to make sure the labels are legible, none-overlapping, and unambiguously associated with the points representing the locations of the places.
  2. When done, replace the text in the “You ID (A B)” textbox in the layout with your assigned ID and a “(A)” (e.g., “C25 (A)”). Print out the map layout to the default printer. Make sure you set the paper orientation to landscape using the printer setup window. The instructor (or TA) will collect your map printed to the printer and hand it to you. You will use the same mxd in the next exercise, so don’t save it when you close ArcMap. You can save the currently project to a new mxd file to store the map layout you just edited. Now STOP and wait for instructions. 

 

STOP +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP

 

Step III. Using the Maplex Name Placement tool

  1. Maplex for ArcGIS extension is a more advanced label placement tool. It provides a special set of tools that allow users to improve the labeling quality on maps. You will use Maplex to place the names on the map in this exercise. Double-click the maps.mxd you just used to open it in ArcMap. Click the Tools -> Extensions menu to open the extension window. Make sure the Maplex extension is checked. Click Close to dismiss the window.
  2. Go to View and select Data Frame Properties to open the dialog window. Set Label Engine option in the General tab to ESRI Maplex Label Engine. Click OK to close the Data Frame Properties window. You have changed the tool (i.e., label engine) in ArcMap. To verify the change, double-click the place_names layer, click the Labels tab, and click the Placement Properties button to open the Placement Properties dialog window. The window should look different from the one you used in previous exercise. Let the instructor or TA know, if you are not sure if you have switched the label engine to Maplex.
  3. Maplex for ArcGIS lets you control how labels should be placed relative to features, how labels may be modified or reduced to allow more placement when the available space is constrained, and how to resolve conflicts between labels when the available space is limited. The labels you create using Maplex for ArcGIS can also be converted to annotation. You can then manually modify their placement as you did in the previous exercise.
  4. In this exercise, we will explore only a few functions of the Maplex extension. They include: fine control of label stacking, the ability to offset labels from features, and placement of labels as background text. Now, switch to the Layout View and zoom to the area (i.e., south of the map) with the most crowded labels.
  5. Double-click the place_names layer in TOC to open the Layer Properties dialog window. Click on the Labels tab and then check the Label features in this layer checkbox. Make sure NAME is the label field and size 8 Arial is the font. Click the Apply button to show the labels. You should see the names of places are labeled on the map.
  6. Now, we can set Maplex placement parameters. Click Placement Properties button and then click the Label Fitting Strategy tab. Make sure the Stack Label option is checked. Click Conflict Resolution tab and check the Never remove label checkbox. Click OK to dismiss the Placement Properties window and click Apply to apply the settings on the layout.
  7. We will only adjust the following three Maplex parameters in this exercise: label position, label offset, and maximal number of stack lines. The font is fixed with size 8 Arial. There are 10 predefined placement positions for point labels, they are Northwest, North, Northeast, West, Centered, East, Southwest, South, Southeast, and Best Position. With the Best Position setting, labels may be placed in any of eight zones around a point. For cartographic consistency, a label is placed in a “preferred” position first. If conflicts occur, the label is moved to its next preferred position. Users have the option of ignoring the preferred zones setting. The label offset controls the distance a label is placed from its feature. A value of zero will cause the label to touch the geometric symbol (i.e., point) boundary. We can also stack labels into multiple lines to make them more compact when space is an issue. The table below lists some suggested values for each parameter. Now use the Placement Properties dialog window to change one or two parameters, then click OK to close the Placement Properties window, and click the Apply button in the Layer Properties window to view the effect.

 

Parameters

Position

Label Offset

Max # of Stack Lines

Maplex Tab

Label Position

Label Position

Label Fitting Strategy

Suggested Settings

1. Best position & User-defined Zones

2. Best position & No User-defined Zones

3. Specific position & May shift label position

4. Specific position & May NOT shift label position

0 – 5 points

1 – 3  lines

Value Used

 

 

 

 

  1. Now STOP and wait for instructions. 

 

STOP +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++STOP

 

  1. You will spend 10 minutes to tweak the three Maplex parameters to create a map that you think has the most appropriate name placement. When done, write the final parameters you used in the blanks in Table 1 above,  replace the text in the “You ID (A B)” textbox in the layout with your assigned ID and a “(B)” (e.g., “C25 (B)”). Replace the Labeling Method text with the parameters you used (e.g., Labeling Method: Best position, no user-defined zones, 2 points label offset, max 2 stack lines.) Print out the map layout to the default printer. Make sure you set the paper orientation to landscape using the printer setup window. The instructor (or TA) will collect your map printed to the printer and hand it to you.
  2. You can exit ArcMap, and proceed to Step IV.

 

Step IV. Post-exercise survey

Go to Name Placement post-exercise survey and complete the questionnaire.

Please return this lab worksheet to the instructor before you leave the lab. Thanks!