Drawing polygons is different than drawing other shapes because you are creating a region on which you can perform other editing and analysis.
For instance, you want to create school districts for your map. You have a street map of your town to guide you in defining the school district boundaries.
To create a polygon:
- Make the layer that you want to work with editable. On the HOME tab, in the Windows group, click Tool Windows, and click Layers from the list, to open the Layers window.
You can also see map layers in the Explorer window.
Click the Editable
icon beside the layer name to turn On editing.Click the Selectable
icon beside the layer name to turn On selection. - On the SPATIAL tab, in the Create group, click Insert, and Polygon. The cursor becomes a cross hair.
- Click a starting point on the map for the polygon.
- Continue to click to add segments to the polygon.
- When you are ready to complete the object, double-click the last end point.
You can delete the last node by pressing the Backspace key.
You can then use the Combine commands (on the SPATIAL tab, in the Edit group) to combine this region with another or reshape the region.
Polylines are made up of multiple line segments that are treated as one object. Unlike lines created with the Line command, you can smooth polylines into a continuous curve using the Smooth Lines command (on the SPATIAL tab, in the Edit group, click Fix/Clean, and Smooth Lines). You can delete the last node by pressing the Backspace key.
Drawing Orthogonal Polygons
You can draw orthogonal (right angle) polygon line segments when you press the Ctrl key. Using this key you can draw the polygon at 45 degree increments relative to the slope of the last line segment. This functionality works for Line, Polyline, Polygon, and Ruler commands.
This functionality is useful when you want to draw perpendicular lines at an angle rather than horizontal to the map.
To see this functionality:
- On the HOME tab, click Open and select a map to display.
- Make the layer that you want to work with editable. On the HOME tab, in the Windows group, click Tool Windows, and click Layers from the list, to open the Layers window.
You can also see map layers in the Explorer window.
Click the Editable
icon beside the layer name to turn On editing.Click the Selectable
icon beside the layer name to turn On selection. - On the SPATIAL tab, in the Create group, clickInsert, and Polygon.
- Click and draw a single line in any direction other than horizontal following these directions:
- To draw the next segment perpendicular to the last segment, press Ctrl while dragging the cursor.
- To draw the next segment perpendicular to horizontal, press Shift while dragging the cursor.
Tracing Polylines and Polygons
When you are drawing a new polyline or polygon, you can use Autotrace to trace nodes from existing polylines or polygons. The Autotrace tool is only in effect when you are using a polygeometric tool (when adding a polyline or polygon, or when selecting a polygon) and Snap is on.
Use Autotrace to trace a boundary of an existing object and avoid creating splinter polygons trying to trace a difficult line.
To trace the nodes of an existing polyline or polygon:
- Press the S key to activate Snap Mode.
- Press the T key to activate Autotrace (for information about autotrace, see Autotracing Objects).
- Click on the first node of the polyline/polygon you want to trace.
- Move the mouse to another node of the same object. Follow the procedure below for the type of object you are tracing:
- Polyline: Hold down the Shift key or the Ctrl key and click.
- Polygon: Hold down the Shift key for the shorter set of nodes or the Ctrl key for the longer set of nodes and click.
Pressing the Shift or Ctrl keys highlights the trace path. Click to automatically trace the segments between the nodes and add them to the polyline/polygon you are drawing.
- Continue until you have traced the entire polygon/polyline and right-click to end.