Text Primitive Attributes

The display attributes one expects to find for text strings – colour, size, style and font – are not actually defined anywhere in the VPF specification.

They are usually handled by assigning a symbology identifierattribute to the text feature classes’ feature table, and relating this ID to a symbology attribute table, typically SYMBOL.RAT. The VPF reader currently defines these text properties according to the values in the SYMBOL.RAT table. The following attributes are currently being used to define these values and are searched in the specified order, and the first value found is taken as the value.

Text Attribute

Attributed Symbology Used to Define It

text_color

SYMBOL_RAT{0}.COLOR, SYMBOL_RAT{0}.COL

text_height

SYMBOL_RAT{0}.SIZE, SYMBOL_RAT{0}.SIZ

text_font

SYMBOL_RAT{0}.FONT, SYMBOL_RAT{0}.FON

text_style

SYMBOL_RAT{0}.STYLE, SYMBOL_RAT{0}.STY