====== Symbols Libraries ======

For graphically displaying point objects, symbols are used. Symbols are individual drawings that do not have any geometric value. Any drawing can be placed on top of a point object.

Orbit uses a system of Symbol Libraries from which you select a symbol to be drawn on your point objects. \\
(See [[basic_appearance#Points|Basic Appearance : Points]])

Symbol Libraries are arbitrary collections of symbols. Symbols can appear in 3 formats : vector, text and image. All symbols are put as they are in a Symbol Library file. This Symbol Library file has a file extension *.osl but is in fact a zip file. This way you can easily create your own Symbol Library. Put the Symbol Library files in the symbols directory of the Orbit GIS installation and Orbit GIS will recognize it at startup time.

The Symbol Library name is the name of the .osl file without file extension, for example : the file 'MySymbols.osl' will appear as library 'MySymbols'.

The Symbol name is the name of the symbol file without file extension, for example : symbol file 'MySymbol.gif' will appear as symbol 'MySymbol'.

==== Vector Symbols ====

Vector symbols are created in ovs format (Orbit Vector Symbol). Read the documentation on [[http://www.orbitgis.com|www.orbitgis.com]] for details about this format.

Vector symbols can have a foreground and a background. You can specify different colors for back- and foreground in the legend editor.

==== Text Symbols ====

These are plain text files with .txt extension.

==== Image Symbols ====

These symbols can be any image file with Orbit-supported format (gif, tif, jpg, png, bmp, ...). Not that image symbols are displayed as is - you cannot assign a color to them in the legend editor.