topic Re: Interwoven layer drawing in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Interwoven layer drawing

JeffThomasILM — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 15:06:14 GMT

Is there a way to interweave layer drawing order? E.g., there are three layers, and I want layer 1 to draw on top of layer 2 but under layer 3. I want layer 2 to draw on top of layer 3. In the example below, the thick pink/peach line is a road, the magenta line is a "park zones" boundary, and the dashed black line is the city limits. I want the park zones to draw on top of the road, but under the city limits. I want roads on top of city limits.

I swear I did something like this years ago in ArcMap, involving group layers and advanced symbol layer drawing. But I can't remember how I did it. What I'm trying to do now doesn't involve symbol layers, just separate feature layers, though I guess it could involve symbol layers if that's the trick to getting this to work. And/or maybe it involved duplicating layers? Am I misremembering what is possible? Does Pro handle this differently than ArcMap did? Thank you for any insight!

Re: Interwoven layer drawing

DanaNolan — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 00:22:50 GMT

ArcPro handles symbol level drawing similarly to ArcMap. But SL drawing is for ordering features or classes of features within the same layer.

Interweaving sounds like representations, which ArcMap did. It appears ArcPro has something similar;

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/draw-layers-with-representations.htm

I work in more of a wilderness area, so I can't say I have tried representations.

Re: Interwoven layer drawing

JeffThomasILM — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 14:13:23 GMT

If no one's jumping out to explain how layers can be interwoven, I'm guessing it's not possible.

I definitely was using representations back in the day, along with PLTS. Perhaps that allowed for interweaving layers and/or features in some limited way. A lot of those fancier features are now available in Pro without extensions, but representations are a notable omission. Thanks for pointing out Pro's ability to display (if not edit) representations - I wasn't aware of that! Esri seems to think attribute-driven symbology is a good alternative for representations ("more flexible than representations"), but it doesn't support shape overrides or free representations. Bummer.

Re: Interwoven layer drawing

JeffThomasILM — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 18:02:09 GMT

I forgot about masking. That is how to create "interwoven" layers, combined with symbol level drawing and/or duplicate layers for more advanced options.