Creating a New Layer

The New Layer command allows the user to create a new drawing or GIS entities layer. When a GIS shapefile layer is created, then the GIS feature objects (i.e., nodes, polylines, or polygons) are saved as a shapefile.

Follow the steps below to create a new drawing or GIS layer:

1. From the Map Data ribbon menu, select the New Layer command.
   Alternatively, right-click under the Map Data Layers panel and select New Layer from the displayed context menu.
   
2. The New layer dialog box will be displayed.
   

The following sections describe how to use the New Layer dialog box and interact with the above dialog box.

Map Layer Details

This section defines the name and type of map layer to be created. The Layer name entry field allows the user to define the name of a new layer to be created and displayed in the Map Data Layers panel.

The Layer type dropdown combo box is used to select the type of layer to be created. The following layer types are available in the dropdown combo box:

GIS Layer Details

This section is only enabled when GIS is selected as the Layer type in the Map Layer Details section. Otherwise, the options available in this section are disabled (i.e., grayed out).

The Directory field defines the path and name of the shapefile to be created. The user can click the […] browse button to select the shapefile directory location and file name.

The Feature type dropdown combo box contains Points, Polylines, and Polygons GIS entries.

The Schema definition data table allows the user to define the fields to include for the shapefile layer. The data table requires the following data:

Field Name
This data column is used to define the field name of the shapefile layer to be created for the GIS entities.

Field Type
This dropdown combo box is used to select the data type of the field name. The following data types are available:

Width
This spin control button is only available for text field types and has a default value of 80. This spin control can range from 1 to 255.

Assign Elevations

This section is used to assign the elevation to the elements of the drawing or GIS layer. The following options are available:

Drape onto terrain
On selecting this option, elements on the drawing/GIS layer appear to drape onto the surface terrain representing the ground surface. This option is selected by default.

Float above terrain
On selecting this option and viewing the layer’s elements in 3D view mode, the user can drag the selected element vertically up and down by holding down the [Shift] key.

Assign elevation
On selecting this option, the user can enter a fixed elevation to the elements of the drawing/GIS layer.

Display Properties

This section defines the default display properties for both Drawing and GIS layers.

Note that when GIS is selected as the Layer type in the Map Layer Details section, then the corresponding tab (i.e., Points, Polygons, or Polylines) gets enabled/disabled based on the Feature type selected in the GIS Layer Details section.

The different stylizations for Points, Polylines, and Polygons feature types are as follows:

Point Stylization
The Points panel is used to define the shape, size, border color, and fill color of the point entities.

Polyline Stylization
The Polylines panel is used to define the color, width, style, and transparency of the polyline entities.

Polygon Border Stylization
This section of the Polygons panel allows the user to set the color, width, style, and transparency of the polygon entities.

Polygon Fill Stylization
This section of the Polygons panel allows the user to set the fill color and the transparency of the polygon entities. A transparency value of 40 to 50% works well for the polygon color fills.

After defining all the required fields, click the [OK] button. The software will then create a new layer of the desired layer type and place it in the Map Data Layers panel.