Cartographic features

Available with Aviation Charting license.

Cartographic features are chart-specific copies of the main aviation data in the production database. They are the features that are symbolized on a chart and from which annotation is generated. Because of the cartographic variations between the different types of charts, you may need to remove, relocate, or alter the appearance of features in one chart without affecting other charts that may reference the same features. Cartographic features make this possible. They are stored in feature classes in the Aeronautical Information System (AIS) data model that are named with the _C suffix. They are related to main features via the Master_Id attribute. Master_Id is a foreign key field that stores the GFID attribute value of the related main feature.

The cartographic feature tools allow you control over how cartographic features are created. By default, cartographic features are created based on the spatial extent of an area of interest (AOI) feature. You can further refine them by defining SQL queries that filter based on attribute or by manually identifying features to include or exclude.

Generate Aviation Cartographic Features tool

This tool uses the defined main and AOI feature layers to generate cartographic features in the specified cartographic feature layer. You can use the AIS_CartoExceptions and AIS_ExtractionQuery tables in your AIS to control which features get cartographic copies.

Cartographic exceptions tools

These tools are available on the Aviation tab and allow you to include and exclude specific features, as well as clear previous exceptions. For example, you may need a feature to appear on a chart even though it falls outside the chart’s AOI. Similarly, you may need to ensure that certain features within the chart’s AOI are not displayed. Exceptions are stored in the AIS_CartoExceptions table and are associated with specific AOIs by the MapId attribute.

Extraction queries

SQL statements limit the creation of cartographic features based on attributes. You can edit these queries from the View tab, using the Extraction Queries tool Extraction Queries. For example, features that are identified as high altitude features (Level_Code = “Upper”) may not be needed when creating a low altitude chart. You can use an extraction query to ensure that those high altitude features don't have cartographic copies created. The queries are stored in the AIS_ExtractionQuery table, which is included in the AIS Charting schema.

Preparation of features

The Prepare Aviation Data tool allows you to migrate attributes from your main features into their associated cartographic features. This is useful for symbolizing and labeling your features across related tables in the geodatabase, since not all attributes are transferred to cartographic features after running the Generate Aviation Cartographic Features tool. This attribution can be used for labeling annotation and symbology logic across your features.

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