Original Question:

>I'm searching for a way to convert the dots shown in a dot legend for a
> polygon theme (where each dot represents a single event within a
> particular polygon) to individual point features.

Actually this is just a partial sum as my problem still isn't quite
solved yet.  Thanks to Patrick Moore, Bill Huber, and Phil Hurvitz for
providing some excellent ideas and assistance.  Basically what we came
up with is a script (which follows the body of this message) that finds
the centroid for each polygon and draws vectors at randomly generated
angles outwardly radiating from the polygon centroid.  Points are then
placed at random distances along each vector.  The number of vectors
drawn for each polygon is determined by a user specified field in the
polygon theme.

Upon initial testing using the Country.shp sample data set that comes
with ArcView, the script appeared to run beautifully with excellent
point distribution and randomization each time the script was run.
However, with any other data set I've run the script on, the vectors
drawn and the points placed appear to be constrained to a very narrow
range that is the very nearly the same for each polygon and doesn't
appear to change much each time the script is run.  Is there something
magical about Country.shp?  I don't think so but cannot figure out why
the script works well with that particular shapefile and no other.

I welcome anyone to take a look at this and appreciate any
ideas/input/advice as to how/why the script is not working with all
polygon themes.

Thanks again and will sum anything new I learn.
So close yet so far!
Robert Chao


Script Follows:

'Random Points from Polygon
'Created 10/23/01 by Phil Hurvitz
'Concept by Patrick Moore

'This script should create random points from a polygon theme similiar
to a dot density map.
'The placement of points is based on randomly radiating vectors from the
polygon centroids.
'Points are then randomly located along the lines between the centroid
and the polygon boundary.
'The number of points and vectors created is based on a numeric field in
the polygon theme.


' Set the Variables
theView = av.GetActiveDoc
thePointList = List.Make
theDir = av.GetProject.GetWorkDir
theGList = theView.GetGraphics
theTheme = theView.GetActiveThemes.Get(0)
theFTab = theTheme.GetFTab
theShapeField = theFTab.FindField("Shape")
theExtent = theTheme.ReturnExtent
theXE = theExtent.GetWidth
theYE = theExtent.GetHeight
theDist = theXE.Max(theYE)
theFields = theFTab.GetFields

' Build something here to add only numeric fields
theField = MsgBox.ListAsString(theFields, "Select numeric field",
   "Select")
' The next two lines were created to verify that angles and radians
generated are random
theAngles = List.Make
theRadians = List.Make
for each theRec in theFTab
   thePoly = theFTab.ReturnValue(theShapeField, theRec)
   theNumberOfTimes = theFTab.ReturnValue(theField, theRec)
         theCentroid = thePoly.ReturnCenter
   for each i in (1 .. theNumberofTimes)
      theAng = number.MakeRandom(0, 360)
      theAngles.Add(theAng)
      theRad = theAng.AsRadians
      theRadians.Add(theRad)
      theCos = theRad.Cos
      theSin = theRad.Sin
      theX = theCos * theDist
      theY = theSin * theDist
      thePoint = Point.Make(theX, theY)
      theLine = PolyLine.Make({{theCentroid, thePoint}})
      theClippedLine = theLine.LineIntersection (thePoly)
      theGList.Add(GraphicShape.Make(theClippedLine))
      'theGList.Add(GraphicShape.Make(theLine))
      theDistance = Number.MakeRandom(0, 100)
      theSamplePoint = theClippedLine.Along(theDistance)
      thePointList.Add(theSamplePoint)
      'theGList.Add(GraphicShape.Make(theSamplePoint))
   end
end
theGList.Invalidate
theView.Invalidate
av.ProcessAllINvals


' Create the new point shapefile
theNewFN = theDir.MakeTmp("samp", "shp")
thePointFTab = FTab.MakeNew (theNewFN, Point)
thePShapeField = thePointFTab.FindField("Shape")
thePointFTab.AddFields({Field.Make("ID", #FIELD_CHAR, 2, 0)})
for each thePoint in thePointList
   theRec = thePointFTab.AddRecord
   thePointFTab.SetValue(thePShapeField, theRec, thePoint)
end
thePointTheme = FTheme.Make(thePointFTab)
theView.AddTheme(thePointTheme)
thePointTheme.SetVisible(True)

'Create Message Boxes to see what angles are generated
theAngles.RemoveDuplicates
theAngles.Sort(True)
MsgBox.ListAsString(theAngles, "The Angles:", "The Angles")
theRadians.RemoveDuplicates
theRadians.Sort(True)
'MsgBox.ListAsString(theRadians, "The Radians:", "The Radians")