How do I add a field that determines the feature's transparency in ArcMap?

Question

I have a feature layer that has points. I want these points to be transparent depending on a field that I've created.

Here are references to being able to actually do this (I do understand that these are mostly tech article and a gis.se question, but somewhere someone has done this):

• http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/17494
• http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/21444
• Creating symbology for multiple attributes within the same feature class in ArcMap 10

So I believe this is possible, and what I've found is that under the symbology settings, the Advanced dropdown should have a Transparency option. However this is what I find:

Any ideas what I need to enable to allow this?

Answer 1

From your first link, your features must be polygon features. You have point features. You can buffer your points to create polygons from them, after which you should have the Transparency option in the Symbology-Advanced dropdown:

This option should be present in all versions of ArcGIS since 8.1.

See also this answer: Creating symbology for multiple attributes within the same feature class in ArcMap 10

Answer 2

@baens you're right that it's in Symbology > Advanced > Transparency. @Mapperz is right that it's in 10.1, but not in 10.0, but not about the location of dialog. This is the dialog that comes up.

Edit:
Just looked again at 10.0. It's there, but I only see it for polygons -- not points or lines -- may be what's causing the confusion.

Answer 3

While I have not tried this (the idea came to me as I re-read this question), it may be worth trying (and please report back on its success/failure, please)...

Assuming you are working with features in a Geodatabase and not a shapefile, take a look at creating Cartographic Representations for your point layer and Working with geometric effects. You may be able to use the "buffer geometric effect" in order to

"Create[s] a dynamic polygon with a specified diameter around a point feature"

and then see if you can apply the technique suggested by @blah238. If it works, it would be a much more dynamic (and elegant) solution than creating a one-time buffer snapshot around your source points.

Answer 4

This is fixed in ArcGIS 10.1 - via Display in the Layer Properties

Use the Field option below the highlighted box

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00s50000000z000000

Answer 5

I don't believe you can set transparency based upon a field, it's something that applies to the whole layer.

The only way you could do this is to to create multiple layers (all pointing to the same dataset) but with definition queries. You could then set the transparency for each layer. This approach will only really work if the number of groups your points are in is small.