Maplex - how to stop labels from other layers appearing inside polygon features

[AnthonyCheesman1]

Hi

I am tearing my hair out over a labelling issue at the moment. I have waterbodies (polygon) drawn over the top of watercourses (polyline). Both features need to label - but the watercourse labels should NOT appear inside the waterbodies feature.

Nothing I seem to do is resolving this issue - including setting the feature weight on the waterbody to 1000 (which should exclude it from availability altogether).

I can't mess with my source data, there is no attribute within the watercourse features that I can identify the offending arcs with, so unless I can find a magic solution, my only option is going to be excluding the offending arcs from labelling via SQL query, which I really don't want to do.

Surely there is a neater solution?

[SamuelTroth]

Heya,
I would like to help you solve this problem if we can. Could you possibly post some screenshots of your data? Also what options are you using with the label engine, river or regular line labeling? River or regular polygon labeling? Maplex or standard label engine?

[AnthonyCheesman1]

Hi Sam

Thanks for the response and the offer of help.

Using the Maplex labelling engine - hydro line placement is curved offset, water body placement is regular horizontal placement.

The issue has been (temporarily) resolved via brute force (filtering out the offending line features via an SQL query in the label class) - but I am very keen to work out if there is an easier method.

Underlying hydro line features:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34147[/ATTACH]

With waterbody (Lake Eildon) over the top - you can see the offending overlapping hydro labels (Jerusalem Creek, Big River, Goulburn River et al)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34148[/ATTACH]

Conflict settings in Maplex for waterbodies - note internal and boundary weights set at 1000, which should rule them out for overlapping labels:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34149[/ATTACH]

(Continued next post - can only post 5 images per post)

[AnthonyCheesman1]

(cont)


Settings for line feature labels:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34152[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]34153[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]34154[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]34155[/ATTACH]

I'd be interested what to do to solve this issue - whether it is an issue as to how I am setting / prioritising labels, or whether there is a glitch in the Maplex engine that is allowing labels to overlap regardless of the weights.

Thanks.

[DanaNolan]

I did exactly what you did and can't repeat the problem, though I believe I have seen this before. I am using 10.1. It probably is a glitch that comes from your data, perhaps related to what percentage of your line overlaps the polygon.

[SamuelTroth]

Unfortunately this one has me stumped too. If one enables "never remove" then the label is visible but in every other case the 1000 internal feature weight of the polygon should exclude all labels. All I can think of is to ask which exact version of ArcMap are you using, there might have been a bug which has been subsequently fixed. I am very sorry I cannot do more to help....

[AnthonyCheesman1]

Thanks for the reply Sam.

I'm at 10.1 SP1 at present, but have a looming upgrade to 10.2.2 shortly. I suggest the best way forwards on this is to try the same process again post-upgrade and see if there is any change in behaviour.

Thanks