Symbols within an area

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Dan,

You can fill an area with symbols instead of solid fill, but the symbols
are tiled to fill the area. It is not currently possible to get a random
  looking fill, but you might try something like creating two symbols
the are rather large like:

+-----------+
+  *        +
+ ***       +  crude tree randomly positioned in the symbol
+  #        +
+           +
+           +
+-----------+

And another, but don't make it with the same height and width and make
it with different tree shape in different random position. Make the
background of symbols transparent.

Then fill your polygon area with both symbols. The pattern will be
regular but the different sizes with cause an interference pattern so it
will be harder to detect that it is regular. Play with the symbol sizes
until you get a result you like. You will even get the two images
overlapping in some cases.

I haven't tried this, but it seems like it might work and I think it
would look pretty good. I would be very interested to see the results.

-Steve W.

Dan Taylor wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to show an area of woodland on my map.  Instead of filling the
> areas, however, I'd like to fill it with small tree symbols.  These
> need to be spread round the area in a random-looking way.  The style
> I'm looking to create is similar to that used by UK OS maps.
>
> Does anyone know how I can do this?
>
> I asked this question a week ago and it was ignored.  I guess it's not
> possible?  A reply telling me it can't be done would be just as
> helpful as the solution right now!
>
> Dan
>