Stroke Pattern

A stroke pattern is a pattern of dash strokes and gap strokes that is displayed repeatedly along the length of an element. For each dash stroke, the length and optionally, the color and width, are specified.

The following are stroke pattern attributes:

• Shift (the relationship between the stroke pattern, the first stroke, and the beginning and end of the element).

• Whether the stroke pattern is truncated and restarted for each element segment (displayable vector) or continued across segments.

• The number of repetitions of the stroke pattern used to display elements.

The following are stroke attributes:

• Whether the stroke is a dash stroke or a gap stroke.

• Length, in master units.

• Whether the length is fixed or variable (subject to scaling).

• Whether the stroke is displayed with width and if so, which half or halves.

• Starting and ending width, in master units.

• The type of end cap (if any).

• Whether the stroke can be broken at element vertices.

Point Symbol

A point symbol defines how a series of point symbols (like shared cells) are displayed along the length of an element. A point symbol component contains an association to a stroke pattern component from which dash stroke information is extracted to place the point symbols.

A point symbol is a named group of elements, much like a shared cell, that includes the following information:

• An association to the stroke pattern on which the component is based.
• Associations between point symbols and strokes in the base stroke pattern.
• How point symbols are justified on strokes.
• Optional offset, rotation, and scale factors.

Compound Components

A compound component is a combination of components of any type. Compound components can be nested. The only way to display both dash strokes and point symbols along the length of an element is to create a compound component.

For each component specified in a compound component, an offset is specified. The offset value specifies the distance (perpendicularly) from the working line to where the component is displayed. Offsets can be used to produce many of the effects available with multi-lines.