Displaying Symbols in an Offset Location

[arnoldschwabe]

I think I know the answer to this question before I post it, but I'll ask anyway because maybe someone has a cool solution they would like to share.

We have a set of "working maps" that the field crew use when they are locating infrastructure on the ground. The field maps are more schematic than accurate so that when we have a cluster of 3 or 4 valves at a junction, you can easily see which valve is on which line and there is no overlap. Unfortunately, the locations on the schematic are far from correct because they are drawn for clarity rather than accuracy.

We've gone through the proces of finally locating every water valve in town based on actual location and have placed them all in our map, tied them to record drawings, added sizes, etc. It's great for locating them in the field but when you print a working map, or load them into Infrastructure Map Server, they are close together (1 to 2 feet) and become unreadable. What we really need is a way to display them in Map 3D, or Map Server with some type of offset from their original location, without altering the actual location of the insertion point. I know I can use an offset for the symbol but that would only work in some cases and in certain directions. To be able to do what I want, I would have to be able to control the offset from a central point somehow.

I'm a little stumped and I'm not even sure if it's possible but if anyone has any ideas, I'm willing to give them a try.

[Murph_Map]

The old versions of Topomap had functions to do it with, I don;t know if the new IMS kept them or not.

How are you bring the values/data into the dwh/maps? Are they blocks with attributtes- object data?

[antoniovinci]

If you find no other solutions, you could export your geometry along with its Object Data as shapefile, then import this latter in Mapwindow (a brilliant Gis opensource) and there generate labels with the "Avoid collision" option on.

[arnoldschwabe]

Yeah, I haven't seen anything that looks like that in the IMS version or in Map3D. Right now I have a few versions of the symbols: I have blocks in Map3D with a link to SQL Server and I have an SDF version that I use on the IMS site. I've been playing around with a SQLLite version as well, I find it a little faster than the SDF version.

[arnoldschwabe]

Not really keen on using Mapwindow. I like the Autodesk IM Server and it works great for our purposes.

[parkr4st]

totb

if you had a font set of your symbols you could then use those as labels and use the offset in the advanced dropdown for label style and set them off x&y.  at different zoom levels you could change the offset to suit the needs of the view

[arnoldschwabe]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the replies. I tried the offset thing and a few other ideas but the problem I have with the offset is that it's only X and Y and doesn't work in situations where the line are not orthogonal (which is most cases) and I can't reference a base point for the offset. However, it has led me to something that might work, I'm just not sure it's possible. So, here goes....

I can carry over the rotation angle of my symbol in the SDF/SQLite file of the valves. This would give me an angle that is parallel to the line that the valve is on. It would also give me a reference point because my rotation would generally be based upon the junction that the valve is closest to. Now, if in the expression builder, I could enter an offset of Distance/Angle (similar to drawing entities in AutoCAD) I could likely get it to work.

In other words, I would want my offset to be in the format similar to: @ DISTANCE < (ROTATION *  57.2957795). However, you can see the problem because the expression builder doesn't recognize this format and the < symbol is a comparison operator. So I guess my question is: Is something like this possible in the expression builder or are we limited to only X and Y offsets?