Appendix J: How to create a Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) using Arc2Earth
Arc2Earth is a plugin for ArcGIS that is available in several different editions. The Community edition is free and provides access to the SLD generator. Arc2Earth is available at http://www.arc2earth.com/.
- Install the Arc2Earth plugin
- Open ArcMap
- Open the ArcMap project containing the layer or layers to export as SLDs
- Select the desired layer in the catalog tree
- In the Arc2Earth toolbar, click Export > Export Layer Style to SLD
- Navigate to the appropriate location
- Click Export
After your SLD has been exported, open the .sld in any XML or text editor. Note that the Arc2Earth plug-in adds an outline (stroke) to polygon layers. If you are working with polygon layers, the stroke may need to be tailored or removed manually. Also, it may be necessary to customize the heading for your SLD, or change the schema location.
Note: though .sld files, like any XML document, may be edited by a generic text editor, such as the Notepad or Wordpad text editors included with Windows operating systems, some text editors are better suited to working with XML documents than others. One example of a free-and-open-source text editor designed with XML support is Notepad++ (be sure to get the XML tools plugin).
Section last modified: 15 February 2013