topic Re: ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more? in Mapping Questions

ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more?

KenricMcCay — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:58:05 GMT

Hello,

I would like to add more fields in the my example but was wondering if this is possible?

I don't want to be restricted to only 3 value fields. Is there a way to add as many as I would like? If not, what are some ways to get around this that you do? I have 6 fields I would like to add here.

Thank you for your help!

Re: ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more?

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:04:17 GMT

The way around would be to create new fields and concatenate 2 or more values into them

The destination field would have to be a text field of appropriate width (obviously), and you can use the field calculator to concatenate (aka string addition)

!field1! + " " + !field2! (python syntax)

or you could get fancy and use the new format syntax for python

"{} {} {}".format("a","b","c") where a, b, c

'a b c'

or for fields just replace the strings with field names

Re: ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more?

KyleBalke__GISP — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:04:25 GMT

Kenric,

You could add a new field to your attribute table and concatenate the data from each of the fields you want to use to create unique values, just separate using some kind of delimiter to make it easier to read.

Re: ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more?

AdrianWelsh — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:04:55 GMT

This is a great question. I found where someone asked this on Stack Exchange and there is a 'suitable' answer there. Not sure if this works for you or not.

Besides the obvious, the ArcMap interface really isn't suitable for so many fields. Even three fields is pretty cumbersome.

A workaround is to recode your five fields into a single, master symbology field. Then you can use the regular unique values symbology for this. Here's an example with some made-up data:

By recoding the fields into the Master field, you can create a set of unique symbologies as needed. You could even concatenate values so that the master field had a value of USA, New York, Buffalo, Type 1, Active in the first row.

Re: ArcMap - Symbology Unique Values Many Fields - How to add more?

KenricMcCay — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:32:41 GMT

Thank you all! I will have to do as you guys suggested. Hopefully, it will work out!