Custom Symbols

Spectrum Spatial supports both font and image based symbols which can be used to style layers. A wide range of image based symbols are available by default called Custom Symbols. It is also possible to add your own custom symbols to Spectrum. These will be shown in the Spectrum Spatial™ Manager symbol picker dialog as “Uploaded Symbols”. To be able to use your own custom symbols first you need to make them available to Spectrum Spatial. Do the following to add custom symbols for the first time:

  1. Create a folder called SpatialSymbols outside the Spectrum installation directory (<Spectrum_Directory>). This is the location where you will keep your custom symbols. It is recommended to create this folder outside of the (<Spectrum_Directory>) to avoid losing the folder when Spectrum upgrades.
  2. Enter the full path of the SpatialSymbols folder in the classpath.ext file, which is located at <Spectrum_Directory>/server/modules/spatial.
  3. Save the classpath.ext file.
  4. Restart the Spectrum Spatial module from Settings menu in Spectrum Spatial™ Manager.

You can copy the image files of your symbols into the SpatialSymbols folder, and they will be immediately available for use. There is no need to restart Spectrum at this point. You can also create sub-folders to better organize the symbols. Currently, the supported image types are GIF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, and BMP.

Consider the following example where the SpatialSymbol folder is stored in D drive. The following path is entered in the classpatheext file:

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols

You can store and arrange your custom symbols in different folders inside the SpatialSymbols folder as shown in the examples below:

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols\Corporate\Logo.png

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols\Environmental\LampPost.png

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols\Environmental\Hydrant.png

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols\Stores.png

Working with Custom Symbols

Do the following to use the custom symbol in a layer using Spectrum Spatial™ Manager:

  1. Start Spectrum Spatial™ Manager.
  2. Create a new layer or edit an existing layer
  3. Select Define Style Override display style
  4. Click Select a Symbol drop down and then click the Font Name drop down
  5. Notice that there is at least one folder named as Uploaded Symbols. There can be multiple folders that start with Uploaded Symbols and this depends on the way the symbols are organized in the SpatialSymbols folder. All the custom symbols are organized under a folder that starts with Uploaded Symbols
    Note: The folder named Uploaded Symbols is same as SpatialSymbols folder that you created in the spatial folder.
  6. Select a symbol from the Font Name and save the changes
  7. Notice that the preview of the layer now displays the custom symbol recently updated.
Note: If there are sub folders in the SpatialSymbols that contain .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, or .gif files, then they will appear as well in the list. If you have a sub folder in the SpatialSymbols that does not contain any .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, or .gif files then they will not appear in the font and character picker.

Using symbols from MapInfo Pro

The standard sets of symbols that are deployed with MapInfo Pro are also deployed with Spectrum. However, you may have added your own symbols for use in MapInfo Pro. When you upload maps from MapInfo Pro using the map uploader, then the tables or layers (as part of a style override) will reference the names of these symbols which are not yet available in Spectrum Spatial.

If you try to render a map or layer (or render a legend for them) and the symbol they reference is not uploaded then you will see an error that the symbol file could not be found.

To make these symbols available to Spectrum you need to copy them into the root of the SpatialSymbols folder that you created using the above steps. Note that placing them in sub folders will not work since the uploader does not add any sub folder references when referencing the symbol names in the layers.