OpenCities Map CONNECT Edition Help

Registering Spatial Features

When moving from OpenCities Map (SELECTseries 3) to OpenCities Map (SELECTseries 4), all features in a spatial database project should be re-registered to take advantage of the new features.

  1. Open the Graphical Sources, right-click the Named Connection node and select Register Features.


  2. A dialog opens providing options to customize the registration process. The registration process displays tables belonging to the current user that meet the options as described below:
    • Simple Geometry Features - tables with a geometry column that meet the requirements for OpenCities Map and owned by the current user .
    • Non-spatial features – features in the project that are not stored as spatial features in the defined graphical source
    • Raster Features - tables with a georaster column that meet the requirements for OpenCities Map and owned by the current user.
    • Features owned by other users - other tables to which the current user has access but are not owned by that user.
    • Related features - tables that are related to other selected tables by a referential constraint. These are typically tables that store annotations and domain lists.
    • Password - the password used to create the original connection. OpenCities Map does not save passwords for security reasons.
    • Windows Integrated Authentication - enable that option if implemented.


  3. A list of valid tables displays in the Register Features List dialog. Select the tables to register and select Next.


    If there is a table with mixed or unrestricted geometry features it is displayed with a different icon as below.



    If mixed tables are selected, then a dialog will open to select the correct geometry type for each table.



    Existing features that match the selected feature can be selected from the list. Those features will be replaced in the project by the newly registered features.

    Note: OpenCities Map requires that features be well defined; either points, lines or polygons or collections of the same. When querying data, only features with geometry that matches the feature type are extracted. Other features are simply ignored. For example, if the landuse feature is specified to be a polygon collection then any linear geometries will not be queried and will not be available for viewing or editing in OpenCities Map. Only one feature can be registered to a mixed table at one time.
  4. The next dialog allows the administrator to change the name of the feature and the display name that users will see when operating OpenCities Map. The XFM Feature Name should respect the XFM feature naming conventions. The interface will not permit an invalid feature to be named. Properties can also be adjusted in the lower pane. Existing features that match the selected feature can be selected from the list under XFM Feature Name. Those features will be replaced in the project by the newly registered features.


    Columns can be sorted and filtered by right-clicking on the column headers and selecting the appropriate sorting and filtering option.
    Note: Right-clicking on the feature name or selection of names shows the following menu:
    Find Locates the specified text in the list of feature names.
    Copy Copies the selected feature names to the clipboard.
    The case changing options do not apply to this column.
    Note: Right-clicking on the XFM Feature name or Display Name shows the following menu:
    Edit Edits the selection.
    Find Locates the specified text in the list of feature names.
    Replace Replaces the selected text with new text.
    Copy Copies the selected feature names to the clipboard.
    Make Uppercase Forces the selection to be upper case.
    Make Lowercase Forces the selection to be lower case.
    Make Mixed Case Forces the selection to be mixed case.
  5. (Optional) (Oracle Spatial only) OpenCities Map supports links defined by MicroStation using the Add Link to Element tool. In order to store these links, a column in the database of type CLOB must exist. It can then be selected in the dialog as shown. In operation, any links stored on the feature will be posted to the specified property. On query, any links from the specified property will be added to the feature in OpenCities Map.


  6. (Optional) (Oracle Spatial only) If any features are to support composite surfaces 3D geometry, then select them in the Specify Composite Features dialog. Composite features are necessarily polygon features.


  7. (Optional) If any of the features are point features, there will be an option to define a column that can be used to store the angle of the feature as well as columns to store the X and Y scale value. The angle and scale of cells and text will be stored in the selected columns. The registration wizard automatically looks for columns named MS_X_SCALE, MS_Y_SCALE, and MS_ANGLE. If these columns are present in the data table then they will automatically be populated in the appropriate fields for the point feature. Enter the appropriate settings and click Next.

    X Scale and Y Scale are unit less values that simplify magnify (scale > 1.0) or shrink (0.0 < scale <1.0) or leave unchanged (scale = 1.0) the default dimensions of the element used to represent the point feature.

    An X Scale of 2.0 would double the width of the feature; 0.5 would divide the width by two. The actual size of the feature depends upon the dimensions of cell used, or in the case of text, the size of the font and the number of characters in the text string.

    Leave these columns blank if scale and angle are not required per feature. The values defined in the feature definition will be used when the features are queried from Oracle.



  8. (Optional) Point features can also be placed with a cell or with text. To place text when the feature is queried, then select the property that should be used to define the value for the text string. To place a cell for this point feature, then leave the Expression entry blank. The cell name is defined after the feature is registered in the symbology section of the feature definition. Enter the appropriate settings and click Next.
  9. (Oracle Spatial Only) In order to properly insert new features in Oracle Spatial in a multi-user environment, a sequence generator needs to be defined to create new ID numbers at post time. For each registered feature, select the appropriate sequence generator from the list. If a sequence generator for that feature is not available, one can be created by entering a name in the Generator field and selecting Add.


    A list of features to be registered is presented. Click Finish. The selected features will be registered in the All Users section of the project as shown.

  10. Define the appropriate symbology and placement methods for each feature in the in the symbology node of each feature.


    Note: To prevent improper scaling of text features that are registered as having the scale defined in the database, make sure to set the Scale to 1 and the ApplyDrawingScale option Off as in the following image.