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Display a shapefile with custom symbology.

Image of symbolize shapefile

Use case

Feature layers created from shapefiles do not possess any rendering information, and will be assigned with a default symbology. You can apply custom styling to ensure that the content is visible and usable in the context of a specific map. For example, you could use this to visually differentiate between features originating from two different shapefiles, by applying a blue color to one, and a red color to the other.

How to use the sample

Press the toggle button to switch between the red and yellow symbology renderer and the default renderer, set to the feature layer created from the shapefile.

How it works

  1. Create a ShapefileFeatureTable, providing the path to a shapefile.
  2. Create a FeatureLayer from a ShapeFileFeatureTable.
  3. Create a SimpleRenderer to override the default symbology. The simple renderer takes a symbol and applies that to all features in a layer.
  4. Apply the renderer to the FeatureLayer by setting the renderer.

Relevant API

  • FeatureLayer
  • ShapefileFeatureTable
  • SimpleFillSymbol
  • SimpleLineSymbol
  • SimpleRenderer

About the data

This sample displays a shapefile containing subdivisions in Aurora, CO.

Additional information

While shapefiles contain no rendering information, other data sources such as Service Feature Tables or Geodatabase Feature Tables can contain such information. As a result, the rendering properties of the other data sources can be pre-defined by the author.

Tags

package, shape file, shapefile, symbology, visualization

Sample Code

module-info.java module-info.java SymbolizeShapefileSample.java
/*
* Copyright 2022 Esri.
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
module com.esri.samples.symbolize_shapefile {
// require ArcGIS Maps SDK for Java module
requires com.esri.arcgisruntime;
// handle SLF4J http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder
requires org.slf4j.nop;
// require JavaFX modules that the application uses
requires javafx.graphics;
requires javafx.controls;
exports com.esri.samples.symbolize_shapefile;
}