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MapInfo Monday: Toning Down Layers

  • 1.  MapInfo Monday: Toning Down Layers

    Employee
    Posted 09-05-2022 09:11
    Edited by Peter Møller 09-07-2022 02:03
    Happy #MapInfoMonday!

    In today's post, I wanted to address a question that appeared on MapInfo-L, the other mailing list related to MapInfo Pro.

    "The OS map I have is very dark so the labels don't show up even with different colours. I can't make them too big as there are a lot of them. Does anyone know how I can fade out the OS map so it's grey and white rather than black and white"

    My suggestion would be to add a polygon layer in between your layers to tone down some of your layers.

    Let me show you what I mean.

    Here's an example of a colorful map. You got a colorful base map and some colorful polygons on top. Let me show you how you can make some elements stand out by toning down other layers.

    ​First, let us add a new table to the map via New Table from the Table tab. I select to add the new table to my current map window and to create a new table structure instead of basing it on an existing table.

    I keep the table structure very simple. I just add a single character column. It could just as well have been an Integer column. I don't really need the attributes.

    I create the new table in the folder with my other data tables.

    When the table has been added to my map, I zoom out so that I can see my entire area of interest. I now draw a polygon that covers my area of interest and a bit more. I want to ensure that this polygon always covers my map extent.

    I change the style of my Tone Down layer so that the override polygon style is a full-colored white style, and I set the Layer Translucency to 25 % via the Style tab.

    Currently, you can see that this new polygon tones down all my existing layers.

    If I want to focus on my address points, I bring this layer to the top of the Layer List. Now they stand more out as you can see below.

    I can also make a polygon layer, Nature Conservation Areas, stand out by moving this layer to the top. It doesn't stand as much out as the address points. That's because this layer also has translucency enabled.

    Or if I want to focus on my labels, I keep the Tone Down layer at the top of the Layer List. Labels are always drawn on top of all other layers. This means they will always get rendered on top of the Tone Down layer.

    I hope this gave you some ideas on how you can control what elements get highlighted on your map. If you want to tone down a raster base map, take a look at this post: MapInfo Monday: Making your base map grey.

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    Peter Horsbøll Møller
    Principal Presales Consultant | Distinguished Engineer
    Precisely | Trust in Data
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