ESRI JSON Polygon Ring Orientation?

Here's a link to Esri's doc on JSON geometry objects. From that page:

The REST API supports 4 geometry types - points, polylines, polygons and envelopes.

Sounds like multi-polygons are not supported. See below. You can create multi-polygons by adding additional rings. There's nothing explicit about interior v. exterior rings. I'm curious so I'm going to look into this further...will edit this post if I find anything else.

Edit: I looked into this a bit more. It looks like if you add rings that fall inside an existing ring, the interior rings are holes. If you add a ring that is not inside another ring, it's added as an additional polygon which is basically a multi-polygon. Here's a simple page that shows this:

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <title>Polygons!</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/2.1/js/dojo/dijit/themes/claro/claro.css">
    <style>
      html, body { height: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
      #map{
        padding:0;
      }
    </style>
    <script type="text/javascript">var djConfig = {parseOnLoad: true};</script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/?v=2.1"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      dojo.require("dijit.layout.BorderContainer");
      dojo.require("dijit.layout.ContentPane");
      dojo.require("esri.map");
      var map;
      function init() {
        var initExtent = new esri.geometry.Extent({"xmin":-12959519,"ymin":3696971,"xmax":-9444639,"ymax":5453188,"spatialReference":{"wkid":102100}});
        map = new esri.Map("map",{extent:initExtent});
        var basemap = new esri.layers.ArcGISTiledMapServiceLayer("http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Topo_Map/MapServer");
        map.addLayer(basemap);
        var resizeTimer;
        dojo.connect(map, 'onLoad', function(theMap) {
          dojo.connect(dijit.byId('map'), 'resize', function() {  //resize the map if the div is resized
            clearTimeout(resizeTimer);
            resizeTimer = setTimeout( function() {
              map.resize();
              map.reposition();
            }, 500);
          });
          var poly = new esri.geometry.Polygon({"rings":
            [
              [[-11214840,4858704],[-10520181,4853812],[-10510397,4149368],[-11219732,4144476],[-11214840,4858704]], // ring #1, poly with two holes
              [[-11097433,4770648],[-10916430,4770648],[-10916430,4609213],[-10984918,4560294],[-11097433,4614105],[-11097433,4770648]], // ring #2, a hole
              [[-10779455,4472238],[-10622912,4349939],[-10750103,4242315],[-10833267,4296127],[-10779455,4472238]],  // ring #3, another hole
              [[-11298004,4614105],[-11293112,4310803],[-11571954,4305911],[-11542602,4584753],[-11298004,4614105]] // ring #4, western polygon
            ],
            "spatialReference":{"wkid":102100}
          });
          var sym = new esri.symbol.SimpleFillSymbol({"color":[255,255,0,64],"outline":{"color":[255,0,0,255],"width":1.5,"type":"esriSLS","style":"esriSLSDashDot"},"type":"esriSFS","style":"esriSFSSolid"});
          var graphic = new esri.Graphic(poly, sym);
          map.graphics.add(graphic);
        });
      }
      dojo.addOnLoad(init);
    </script>
  </head>
  <body class="claro">
    <div dojotype="dijit.layout.BorderContainer" design="headline" gutters="false"
    style="width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;">
      <div id="map" dojotype="dijit.layout.ContentPane" region="center" style="overflow:hidden;">
      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

If you load that page, the first ring is the square with two holes. The two holes are rings two and three. The fourth ring in the western most polygon. This might look like two graphics but it's actually just one.


The esri json format closely follows that of the esri shape.

The esri polygons consist of rings. They can represent both Multipolygon and Polygon entities from OGC.

The geometrically simple polygons will have no self-intersections and will have exterior rings clockwise and interior rings (holes) counterclockwise. If you are reading from Esri services that's what you get usually.

The non-simple polygons (those that have rings oriented differently or have self-intersections) should be interpreted using the regular even-odd fill rule when drawing or making a point in polygon test.

When converting from OGC Multipolygon to Esri polygon, just make sure the exterior rings are oriented clockwise and holes are counterclockwise.

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