ArcGIS fills and transparency

[WarrenMedernach]

I have some general comments and questions about transparency and fills in ArcGIS:

1. Why can't you just set transparency on the fill area of a polygon?  I don't want the boundary transparent as well.  Yes, I know it's easy enough to simply copy the layer, and turn of the fill and transparency on the copy, but seems silly to have to do that.


2. With overlapping polygons in a single feature class, many times the transparency fails to show lines underneath of the overlapped polygon?


3. Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me that Arc* does not do a 'true' transparency?  For example, if I have overlapping polygons, the overlapped area should be 'darker' because of 2 overlapping/stacked objects, but that's not what I'm seeing.

Unfortunately, the forum is not letting me upload an image, so I cannot provide a sample screen capture.
Any suggestions/comments greatly appreciated
Warren M

[WarrenMedernach]

Ok, to adjust my statement on #3:

I now see that if the data resides in 2 separate feature classes, the transparency is working exactly as I would expect it to...  So this seems to be an issue then with overlapping polygon features within a single fc.

Warren

[JudithCauldwell]

I tend to agree with Warren's #1, sometimes you need a definate edge to a polygon but still be able to 'see' through it.

One thing that frustrates me with ArcGIS Explorer fills is the lack of the differentiation without creating lyr files. What happened to the idea of cross hatching polygons? Or dot dash lines? Even a ordered stipple fill? These were available in MapExplorer years ago, why is it that systems seem to lose the basic functionality when they're 'upgraded'? Likewise setting legends on categorised fields would be good. Creating a lyr file for every dataset in an organisation is not only time consuming but also frustrating when all you need to set is a seemingly simple display option.

Moan over.

Judith 🙂

[DanielDillard]

I just ran into this issue today and wanted to chime in with my support for all of Warren's points.  Working in 9.3 so perhaps these have been addressed at 10, but with no response from ESRI in the thread I will assume not.

[michaelMicallef]

Just as a quick note for most that miss this little aspect - due to its somewhat hidden  location...
this does have limited ability to address what you are trying to do but you can try the "Advanced" button on the symbols property tab and use a generated value for transparency against the individual features - this will cause some problems with legend representation but if you are only looking at one or two symbols - it is a bit of a compromise... fiddle with it.
Layer properties > Symbology > Advanced > Transparency

[Jan_Willemvan_der_Lichte]

I totally agree with  all three points stated in the beginning.
I used to use Intergraph's Geomedia Professional, and all three tihings were standard behaviour.
I think ESRI did miss a selling point here!

Jan Willem van der Lichte