Maptitude Help / Tutorial / Adding Distance Buffers to the Map

Stage 5: Adding Distance Buffers to the Map

Now let’s create buffers on the map to show how far these customers are from your downtown location. We’ll do this using the Buffers toolbar. The Buffers toolbar lets you point and click on the map to add temporary features, and then build buffers of any distance around the features you added.

Blue triangle buffer iconTo Add Buffers to the Map

  1. Choose Tools>Analysis>Buffers Toolbar or click Routing and Directions Manager button icon Buffers Toolbar in the analysis tools drop-down on the Standard toolbar.
  2. Click Buffers toolbar Add Point button icon in the Buffers toolbar.
  3. Click near the center of the city.
  4. Click Buffers toolbar Create Buffers button icon in the Buffers toolbar and click No when Maptitude asks you if you want to save the point you added to a new layer. Maptitude displays the Buffers dialog box.
  5. Choose Evenly Spaced from the Method radio list.
  6. Type “5” in the From edit box, “20” in the To edit box, and “5” in the By edit box.
Buffers dialog box options
  1. Click OK.

Maptitude creates buffers at 5 mile/kilometer intervals from the location where you clicked and displays them on the map so that you can see the proximity of the best customers to your location. Notice that the Display Manager now has a new layer called "Point Buffers."

Blue triangle buffer iconTo Customize the Legend

  1. Right-click on the legend and choose Properties.
  2. Click the Contents tab.
  3. Remove the check from the Layers box.
  4. Highlight the My Customers Layer selection sets item in the scroll list and replace the text in the Subtitle box with “My Customers” to rename the selection sets section of the legend.
  5. Highlight the Selection item in the scroll list and replace the text in the Set Name box with “Sales Over $250,000” to rename the selection set in the legend.
Legend Settings dialog box
  1. Click OK.

Finally, let's retitle this map.

Blue triangle buffer iconTo Retitle a Map

  1. Right-click anywhere on a map except on a label and choose Properties.
  2. Change the title to "Buffer Map" and click OK.

Your map should now look something like this:

Buffer map with customer points

Click Save button icon to save the changes to the workspace and move on to Stage 6: Displaying Data for Customers of Interest.

 

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