How to use data points for shading polygons in ArcMap?

Hi,

I'm fairly new to GIS, so forgive me if this is a silly question.

I have a data set with two files: one shows the boundaries of
forests/fields/water etc with joined lines, making polygons. The other
file is data points displaying right in the middle of each polygon,
showing the type of area that field denotes (ie a forest).

My question is: how would I use the data point dataset to fill the
polygons with a specific color? Right now its all data points
superimposed on the lines. Any help would be appreciated. I'm using
ArcMap 9.1

Jacob

Jacob, I think the IDENTITY command will accomplish your goal. You can find
information in the help.

If you have a license for ArcToolbox you may want to look for the
FeatureToPolygon tool. This will take in your layer of lines and turn
them into actual polygon features. As an added bonus there is an
optional input for a label layer. Just hand in your point features
here and it will copy the attributes from the points to the polygons
they are in. Then you can use the symbology properties on your layer
to set the shading according to the attribute in question that was
copied over from the points.

JB wrote:

Jacob,

You may try "Spatial Join" option. (It is nothing but a point over
polygon overlay). When you use this all the attributes from the point
layer will get transferred to Polygon layer. Later you can colour code
the polygons based on the data point field. You may follow this
procedure:

1) Add the polygon and the point layer to a view.
2) Right clicke on the "Polygon" Layer and choose "Join"
3) "Join Data" dialog will open. From the combo box under the option
"What do you want to join this layer" Choose "Join data from another
layer based on spatial location"
4) Choose the point layer under "Choose the layer to join
................"(it will be displayed by default - if not browse to
the location where you have stored the same)
5) Select option 3 in the radio button - this will transfer all the
point attributes to the corresponding polygons.
6) Press OK
(A new lpolygon ayer will be created (say join_output) and added to
the TOC.

Open the attribute table of the newly created layer and you will find
the point attributes transferred to the correspoinding polygons. Now,
using the relevant field in the polygon layer and colour code.

Cheers!

Vish

P.S" You can acheive the same result using Identity tool from ArcTool
Box, if you have Arc Info Licence

It worked great, thanks for your help everyone!