Symbolising One-to-many relationships using ArcGIS Desktop?

Question

I have a polygon feature class which has various extent areas with a name which is unique

I also have a table (in a file geodatabase) that has the extent names with a score value. But there can be many score values per extent.

I want to visually represent the score values either by colour symbology or pie/bar chart symbology in ArcGIS Desktop (I have an ArcInfo license too).

It's one of these questions that get bounced round the Esri forums quite a bit, so I was wondering if anyone here had any suggestions or any work arounds that they have done in the past?

Answer 1

For a programmatic approach, I see several options:

• custom Layer.

• custom renderer.

• layer extension that implements ILayerExtensionDraw.

With any of these approaches, you can use IRelationshipClass.GetObjectsRelatedtoObject, (or RelatedToObjectSet), assuming you've set up a relate to the score table.

Answer 2

Drawing features to show quantities: Pie Charts and Bar Charts

http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Drawing_features_to_show_quantities

& About symbolizing data to represent quantity

http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=About_symbolizing_data_to_represent_quantity

If have Business Analyst you can symbolize charts:

http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?id=1371&pid=1370&topicname=Symbolize_by_Chart_%28Business_Analyst%29

Answer 3

I am not sure I understand your question, but I will make my best guess at an answer (since I cannot comment for further information yet).

Assuming what you have is a mass of several scores based on various related table attributes, such as demographic/economic/etc data (median income, population), and assuming you wish to symbolize this data in a manner that relates it together, I would suggest assigning values to certain aggregations of data. For example, if one geographic area has high population but low median income, give it a specific value. That way, when you graph the information (or symbolize it), you can display multiple pieces of data with relatively clean graphical representation. In statistics, this practice is called "recoding," and basically means that you simplify one or more variables into another variable to allow for more accessible representation. If you want help doing something of this nature, I asked a question about an efficient method for recoding values into a new field a couple of days ago.

If this is helpful, let me know and I will expand as best I can.

Recoding values based on contents using ArcGIS Field Calculator?

Answer 4

One way I can think of is to do a reverse join (spatial table to business).
Then use a calculated xy to place events.
After that perhaps a label with advanced text> text background and a leader tol set very low.
Then using maplex and setting the distance offset-never remove-best placement options in the placement properties.
Depending on the max # of relates it might at least get all the values on the page.
It would also depend on how important the underlying geometry is. You can set the priority up for items you don't want the labels to overpost.

If your relates have some classification you might start by doing a symbology, and following this answer to get the labels classified, and then use different color balloon callouts.

I sped through the first few steps. If you need more direction leave a comment and I can expand.