Spectrum Spatial (SSA/LIM)

Hello

More feedback - it would be EXTREMELY useful that once users have added several annotations of the same type that they could edit them all at once, instead of one at a time. OR if you could combined several annotations into one shape (i.e. if the shapes were touching, the line dividing them would disappear)

For example, the issue that just crossed my desk - property is made of multiple parcels (about 20). User found all of the relevant parcels via a single query (no option to add query results as annotation, that's also very frustrating) so user had the option of drawing a line around the outer edge of the selection or adding the parcels one at a time, and then changing the style of the parcels one at a time to create outlined parcels with no fill

User also noted that after so many clicks, the annotation line stops working and you need to make a new annotation line to finish complex shapes.

Some good feedback, Rebecca.

Spectrum Spatial Analyst has this new feature which should solve your request for combining annontations:

Merge and Split Annotations - Merge and Split is a functionality that enables a user to select polygon annotations on the map and perform operations like merge, intersect, subtract and split. The Merge and Split feature is enabled only when there are two or more polygon annotations drawn on the map.

And a single question to better understand the requirement for having the query result as annotations: Does the user have to export the annotations afterwards to a different tool or why is it not enough have the query with a different style on top of the other layers?

Thanks

Hello Thanks! That sounds really promising If you display the query results instead of an annotation you are stuck with a solid object that you can fade out but you can’t have as an outline only. There isn’t an option to change anything other than the colour or transparency. So if you have something on the map that is coloured, the query result polygon changes the colour of the map below it or at least semi obscures it. It no longer matches the legend colours. I hope that makes sense?

Thanks, Rebecca.

Maybe the solution would be to turn off the override style of the query and use the style from the layer that the query was based on?

Might be a bit more tricky as the query is based on a table and not a query but we should be able to do this.

I'm not quite sure what you mean? The point is to highlight the selection without obstructing the view of the layer beneath it

This is what happens when you query. The colours are altered. As far as I can tell I cannot change this style or add this query as an annotation.

If I want to add it as an annotation, I have to select each polygon and individually add as annotation. If I use multiselect I still need to add as annotation each parcel one by one.

THEN after I've added each polygon as an annotation, I can edit each polygon one by one to get the desired effect. (in this case instead of a solid blue, I want no fill with red outline).

Also having just done this, it's quite annoying that every time I add an annotation the window zooms to that annotation, so I have to zoom back to what I was looking at after each add

Ah, sorry, I might not have been clear. I don't think there is a workable solution at the moment. I was more looking for how we should solve this in the best way moving forward.

An easy way to copy records to the Annotations could be one option. Another could be to let you better control the display of the query result.

Can I ask that you post this idea to our Ideas Portal? In that way it will be easier for the product manager to track the request. You can find the Ideas Portal here: https://ideas.pitneybowes.com/ideas

Thanks

Hi @Rebecca Marks​ ,

I agree with you, adding the query as an annotation, changing the style of the annotations all together like you said would be good ideas to add at the idea portal as @Peter Horsbøll Møller​  said. In the main time hoping this answers to your question I would suggest you to proceed in this way:

• at the moment your polygons are annotations you may export them using Annotations>Export selected as KML
• add layer from the kml created above
• now you can change the style (not only the colour) of all the polygons together.

You might solve also the issue with the map in the printing template... let me know... thanks

Hi @Rebecca Marks​ ,

just a clarification of my answer above... this procedure above described is for helping to change the full style (not only the colour and the trasparency, so also the fill and pattern type) of all the objects (polygons in your case) together - as you asked for. Unfortunately, the end user cannot add the query as annotation - so yes, you need to select polygons (you might use the multi-select feature) and adding them as annotations.

Thanks

Will do, thanks Peter!

Monica that would work for me, but my end user would probably find that a little difficult. I'll give it a go and write her a step by step but I'm trying to make her job easier, not harder

Monica, that would still involve a query, selecting 20 odd polygons one by one, adding them as an annotation one by one, then exporting as kml, then importing as kml, then editing the style. Still quite a few steps.

If queries could be added as annotations and annotations could be grouped, you could cut the process down to query, add as annotation, group annotations, edit once.

Hi @Rebecca Marks​  , good point, understood. Adding a query to annotations is not in roadmap at the moment. 

After chating with @Mustafa Ismail​  here we are :

• One option for the road map may be to allow existing query layers to be styled with no fill pattern – which would avoid the need to add them as annotations.
• A second option is to add them as vector layers rather than annotations. This would be more performant as vector layers are already grouped and can be styled to have no fill pattern.

We would suggest you adding one or both options as feature requests into the Ideas Portal as Peter suggested.

Also, if you have SSA extensibility, it would also be feasible (but involves writing code) to add a new menu option to query layers that can copy them to a new vector layer.

Thanks.