Color Areas Solver for Manifold® System Release 4.50

The Color Areas solver package is a free upgrade for registered Manifold System 4.50 users.  Don't have Manifold System?  Visit the Manifold.net Online Store right now and get a copy for only $145. 

Note: This is a first release of this solver and is considered to be a beta release. In a week or two the solver will be re-issued as a final release if any bugs are detected in the beta release. We are issuing the beta because it is so useful and works great in all circumstances to date.

This solver package installs a Color Areas solver into the Solvers - Utility menu. The solver takes a set of areas and assigns to each one a number (called a color value), normally 1, 2, 3, or 4. If the areas are subsequently colored using auto-formatting with a different color assigned to each color value, then the areas will be colored throughout the map so that no two adjacent areas have the same color.

Caution: when used with very large numbers of areas that have complex or highly detailed borders the solver will work slowly, requiring a number of minutes to function. A progress bar and Cancel key are provided for the impatient.

Screen Shots: The screen shots shown at right are an example of using the solver to color counties in Pennsylvania, using the counties demographic sampler map on the Manifold Release 4.50 CD.  We begin by selecting all counties with State = PA and then we color the counties differently using the solver.  The entire process, including Selection and formatting, takes about a minute.

Usage

Using this solver is a two-part process: first, one runs the solver to assign a color value to each area and then second, one uses auto-formatting to color the areas using the color value. The solver operates in this two-part way because many applications require a "coloring" that is a logical notion and not just a thematic formatting choice of format color. 

Here's a step-by-step procedure. This sounds tedious to newbies but in fact goes very rapidly.

1.  Open Table View and use Fields to add an integer field called "color" or some other name you like.
2.  Select the areas to be colored.
3.  From the main menu, set Solvers - Output Mode - Change Field in Resulting Objects
4.  Run the Color Areas solver.
5.  In the pop-up box caused by the Change Field in Resulting Objects mode, choose the color field to be changed. This will cause the color value to be written into the color field for each area. (See the illustration at right above, which shows a detail from a Table View opened into the selection).
6.  Push IN the Format Areas and push OUT the Format Lines and Format Points format mode buttons. Push IN the Format Selection mode button. Now, any formatting done with the Format key will apply only to those areas that have been selected. See the illustration at right.
7.  A small trick: push OUT the Use Selection Color box. This stops usage of the red selection color so that in subsequent steps you can see how the colors turn out while picking pretty colors.  Note the leftmost button in the illustration at right above is pushed OUT.
8.  Press the Format button. Press Auto next to the foreground color well.
9.  In the Autoformatting dialog, choose color in the Controlled by: field box.  (See the illustration at right.)
10.  Choose pretty colors to use by clicking on the four or so sample buttons. Press OK, then Apply in the Format dialog. If you don't like the colors, go back into Auto and change them until happy with the aesthetic effect.  The result is that all counties are colored such that no two counties that touch share the same color. (See map at right below).


Alternate method for people who like to use Results History

Some people like to leave Solver Output Mode set to "Replace." Alternately, perhaps you ran the solver and forgot to change the Solver Output Mode to "Change Field.." No problem. Pop open Results History and use that.

If you have the Results History window open while operating the solver, you'll see that a list of areas together with the color value computed for each is output to Results History. At the end of the list is a Results History histogram icon. In the inimitable Results History way, this icon is a "handle" to grab the results and move them around.

You can leave the Solver output mode set to "Replace" (the usual default) and at any time transfer the color values to the color field by right-clicking on the Results History histogram icon and choosing Save to Field in the resultant pop-up menu. This will save the color values to the desired field.

This solver requires Manifold System Release 4.50. It is licensed material that is subject to the terms and conditions of your End User License Agreement with Manifold Net Ltd.

More Cool Things about Color Areas

It's very important that Color Areas works by assigning a color value number to each area.  Such numbers can be used for all sorts of things besides formatting with colors.  

Autoformat Area Styles -  You can autoformat Style by the color value to change the style with which each area is drawn.  As shown in the illustration below, each area will thus be drawn using a different style such that no two adjacent areas have the same style.  This is very helpful when creating black and white maps for reproduction by copiers, laser printers and the like.  This illustration is drawn larger than the others so that the various area styles may be better distinguished. Of course, one may use the color value to simultaneously autoformat area styles, as well as foreground and background colors all at once.

Territory Assignments - The color value may also be used in territory assignment for sales and marketing purposes.  For example, suppose our company sells via exclusive franchise territories.  Suppose we want to divide a state's counties between four franchisees, but we don't want any single franchisee to have two adjacent territories.  We feel that if in all cases each territory is surrounded by competitive franchisee's territories, this will prevent the local territory manager from becoming complacent.  This can be done in an instant using the Color Areas solver: simply sort by the color value and assign territories that way.  Color areas can be used this way because the color value is used as a data attribute and thus becomes a permanent, readable, and analyzable part of the map database.  It's not just some color that can't participate in an SQL query; it's a real attribute.

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