Here’s how you can take an image, turn it into a repeating texture, and apply it to the whole world. We’ll make a cement-sourced gritty texture and then a water-sourced wave texture. We’ll use the Vector Tile Style Editor to make these textures global layers for ArcGIS, ready to pour tactile charm and reality into all your glorious maps.
This is part 1 of a 2-part series about how to make the new Adventure Map basemap for ArcGIS, using the Vector Tile Style Editor, the Map Viewer, and our wits. This first part focuses on how to create relatively seamless texture layers to just, like, make your maps look lived in. The second part will be about assembling these, and other, layers to make a custom basemap.
Texture time!
0:00 Scintillating introduction to the new Adventure Map basemap and its textures.
0:33 Sneaking a grunge texture by taking a picture of my sidewalk.
0:45 Cropping the image to a square (Photoshop, but anything will do).
1:08 Minimizing repeating seams when the texture is repeated (thanks Dylan!).
2:15 Exporting the texture as a PNG (required format for vector tile pattern) and 256 pixels (powers of two work best).
2:47 Firing up the glorious Vector Tile Style Editor using Human Geography Base (also glorious) as the starting template.
3:04 Adding the texture image to the basemap and applying it to the background (and deleting the non-background content). We’ve done it! If you want to cheat, you can just find my texture layer in Living Atlas; it’s called Slate Texture.
4:25 A quick review, this time creating a Water Texture (also available in Living Atlas) only in water polygons. The Vector Tile Style Editor is amazing!
5:19 Cliffhanger preview of part 2, where I assemble layers in the Map Viewer to create the Adventure Map. And my first drone shot!
And you don’t need Photoshop to make these textures; make them with whatever image editing tool you like. Also, feel free to snag the ones I made, and use them for whatevz:
Stay tuned for part 2, where these and other map assets get assembled into the Adventure Map. Layers, blends, effects, labels, glory!
Love, John