Conflict resolution in mapping point layer

[Mike_Koutnik]

Hi, I have a challenging problem. I am creating maps to be printed for kiosks in about 30 land trust preserves. They want to use custom symbols on the maps for things like benches, parking, bridges, the kiosks, etc. I have loaded the symbols into the layer symbology. That works well. The problem is that the multiple features are often close together, e.g., a parking lot and a kiosk. So they overlap at the scale of the map. A custom map is being produced for each preserve. And since the size of the preserves varies greatly, so does the scale of the maps. I tried manipulating the size of the symbols. But that doesn't work well. It was suggested we move some features. But the varying scales of the maps makes that messy. And we really don't want to have to maintain one layer for cartographic purposes and another for the infrastructure inventory, where we want accurant locations. So I thought about putting an attribute in the table to correlate with a symbol character in a font. And use standard label conflict resolution to adjust the conflicts. That works quite well. But I have really struggled to find a way to get their custom symbols into a font. I thought callout labels would be another way to do that. But that would also require a way to link the custom symbols to features. Is there some other way to crack this nut? Thanks. 

[DanPatterson]

Vary the size of symbols by scale—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

perhaps in combination with general scaling have a look at 

Apply scale-based sizing to a symbol

[Pukawai]

Way back in the ArcView 3.x days I used a program called Fontographer to create symbols in a font. A bit of a learning curve on drawing the symbols in there, but once accomplished they worked quite well. That old version no longer runs in current wndows OS, but the software is still around, just owned by a different company.

[RTPL_AU]

@DanPatterson  Wasn't this the exact problem statement for Representations?  I wonder why they discontinued it. 

@Mike_Koutnik Scale based visibility and scale based rendering will help a lot. Make sure you test for those edge cases where a map can be viewed at the near-exact scale where you transition from one layer/symbology scale group to another. 

Also look into pre-publishing the maps to vector tile packs - that way the rendering is locked in and you can error check them for weird things before your clients get hold of the apps. 

Lastly - you can lock the scales useable in a map. Edit the list and tick 'Only display these scales when zooming'

Not sure what you are using in the kiosks but using vector & raster tile packs can abstract some of the differences in handling of labels/symbols between Pro, AGOL, Enterprise/Portal, etc.

[JesseWickizer]

If you want to use the Maplex label conflict resolution settings to separate symbols, you don't necessarily need to put the symbols into a font. Create a new label class for each symbol using the Create Label Classes From Symbology tool. Then add a Point symbol callout in each label class point symbol which can be any graphic you construct in Pro, and you can also add a leader line.

Change the symbology to be small points that will be covered by the larger point symbol callout labels.

Configure the labeling settings to use Best position and set the zones so the center position is zone 1 with the highest priority.

Some other label settings to adjust:

• Remove ambiguous labels: Do not remove
• Remove duplicate labels: Do not remove
• Label buffer: 0%
• Preferred offset: 0 Points
• Maximum offset: 50 Points or whatever you think looks good - if you add leader lines to your symbols you can allow for a large maximum offset and let the leader lines point back to the smaller symbology point. 
• Configure the label expression to one that will fit inside the callout symbols such as a single dash and remove the text color. 

You can end up with this style - when the points have room they will label on top of the true location, but when there is a cluster and it doesn't fit it will place offset from the true location.