Part 1

Opening a Theme

To bring a theme into Arcview, click on the View menu button and go to add a theme.

For this example, navigate to the J:/esri/av_gis32/Avtutor/spatial/ directory, on the left you will see a number of themes. Hold down the shift key and highlight “thefarm.shp” and “soilsamp.shp” and hit the OK button. This loads the two shapefiles into Arcview. Click on the check boxes to make the themes visible.

This data represents some soil samples in a field. “SoilSamp.shp” represents the sampling points and carries the soil analysis data. “Thefarm.shp” represents the field or area that the data was taken.

Clicking the boxes on the theme legend will bring the themes into view. You can change the order of the themes in the legend by left clicking and dragging a theme to the level you want it. If you drag “soilsamp.shp” below “thefarm.shp” it will disappear behind the area.

This color scheme is rather annoying don’t you agree? Let’s change the color scheme and make it more pleasing. Start by doubleclicking on “thefarm.shp”. This brings up the legend editor. Here we change any of the visual attributes of the themes, (colors, line widths, symbols, etc.). Double click the symbol you wish to edit and this brings up the Symbol Window. Try experimenting with different colors and fill patterns for “the farm”. When you finish, do the same thing with “soilsamp.shp” and change the size, shape, and color of the points.

I chose the make “thefarm” transparent and my points as blue flags.

Click here to continue to Part 2.