Create sketch overlays to communicate, collaborate, and improve your maps.
Sketch documentation is currently under development. Please see basic usage below, or try the sketch tool in this Sketch Tool demo map.
Think of Sketch like a highlighter for your maps. You can draw shapes and add markers and text annotations, and save them as bookmarks for private or public viewing or share them with a click.
To create a sketch, enable the Sketch tool by opening your Toolbox from your admin sidebar, and selecting the Map Tools tab.
Click on Sketch, and enable the tool by flipping the toggle to ON.
You will now have a new tab in your Legend panel called Sketch.
Creating a sketch on your web map
To create a sketch, click on the Sketch tab and click on the Create a sketch button at the bottom of the Sketch panel.
The Sketch panel will open on the left hand side of your map. Here you can set a name and description for the sketch.
Access Control
Sketches are designed to be shared and worked on collaboratively, so by default new sketches can be edited by anyone with the sketch URL. If you would like to prevent others from editing your sketch, uncheck the box “Allow sketch to be edited by others”.
Once you have set your sketch name and edit settings, click Done to continue to the drawing tools.
Drawing with the sketch tool
Sketch allows you to create line, polygon, rectangle, oval, marker, and text annotations on your maps.
Placing markers
To place a marker, select Create a marker from the tool bar and click on the map to place the marker. You can select a color from the range provided. If you need to reposition the marker, simple hover your mouse over the marker, and click and drag the marker to the preferred location.
To save the marker, click the Done button.
Drawing shapes
To draw a shape, click on the corresponding icon on the right of the sketch panel, and start drawing. You can adjust the line and fill colors and opacity of lines and shapes, and the text content of annotations.
Styling your sketchs
Each element you draw on the map can be styled according to its type. The styling tools become available once an element has been created. Set your desired colors for fill and stroke, stroke widths, and opacity, or marker color.
Modifying shapes
To adjust the size or position of shapes, click on the white box nodes and drag to your preferred shape or size. While the shape is editable, you can also update the fill and stroke color and opacity
Modifying the sketch title and description
To change the name, description, or access settings for a sketch, click on the cog icon while the sketch panel is visible.
NOTE
Extremely large circles may appear to be compressed if placed near the top or bottom of the map boundary; however they occupy the same amount of area. This is due to the distortion of the web Mercator map projection.