MT-Symbol includes our extensive collection of mapping symbols (available as symbols only) PLUS our Symbols Browser and our Linework Symbolizer.

Symbol management

After we developed our collection of blocks, numbering over 1400, it became immediately obvious that a tool was needed to help the user browse the available blocks and then insert them into a drawing. The Symbol Browser was designed for this purpose. One of the most useful aspects of our symbol collection is that each symbol is accompanied by a detailed description. We designed our symbol browser to display slide images of the blocks and detailed descriptions.

Our dialog box is laid out to show 16 slides at a time but also contains a scrolling list of the entire library and Page Up / Down buttons and a GoTo box to jump to a specific block. Every time a selection is made (but picking a slide or description), that symbol is shown in the top left slide and at the head of the description list. Descriptions in the list box are correlated to the slides in a left to right, top to bottom order. This dual identification system can be very helpful to operators who might not know what a proposed water thrust block looks like. After a symbol has been selected, it can be inserted into a drawing with user specified name, scale and rotation.

Inserting a Symbol
A group of Insertion Parameters can be set in the lower portion of the dialog box. When selected block is inserted into your drawing (by clicking the Insert Button), it can retain its library name or named anything you enter into the Name as box. You can also set the Scale, Rotation and Layer of the block.

Linework Symbolizing

The Linework Symbolizer is similar in function to it's more powerful cousin LABLW and it creates exactly the same format of "grouped" linework entities. The major difference is the user interface:

An example of the use of symbolized linework can be shown using a piece of a zoning map for Hillsboro Oregon. The first image shows a portion of the Silicon Forest region and the second shows the same area with a proposed bicycle lane drawn using symbolized linework. Notice how the bike symbol is automatically rotated to avoid upside down symbols. Another special feature of our new symbolizing functions is grouping. We use regular AutoCAD blocks to glue together all of the entities that make up the bike path.

Our linework symbolizer has selectable Symbol Size, Spacing and Cutout Size which allows a wide variety of symblized linework. To show off these capabilities, we put together a few example drawings.

The original Linework
Linework Symbolizing Example 1
Linework Symbolizing Example 2
Linework Symbolizing Example 3
Linework Symbolizing Example 4
Linework Symbolizing Example 5