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 Spectrum Spatial Managers 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. Choose a folder on the Spectrum server machine. It is recommended to have a folder outside of the Spectrum install folder to avoid losing the folder if Spectrum is upgraded.
  2. Add the full path of the folder that you chose in the step 1 to the file install_dir/server/modules/spatial/classpath.ext
  3. Create a folder named 'SpatialSymbols' directly under it.
  4. Restart the server.

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:

Classpath.ext:

D:\SpatialData\SpatialSymbols

Content of the folder which classpath.txt points to:

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 Spatial Manager:

  1. Start 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 Professional

The standard sets of symbols that are deployed with MapInfo Professional are also deployed with Spectrum. However, you may have added our own symbols for use in MapInfo Professional. When you upload maps from MapInfo Professional 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.