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The Visual Computer

, Volume 35, Issue 6–8, pp 1041–1052 | Cite as

Density-based label placement

  • Antoine Lhuillier
  • Mereke van GarderenEmail author
  • Daniel Weiskopf
Original Article
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  • 147 Downloads

Abstract

We introduce a versatile density-based approach to label placement that aims to put labels in uncluttered areas of an underlying 2D visualization. Our novel, image-space algorithm constructs a density map by applying kernel density estimation to the input features, i.e., the locations of the points to be labeled. In order to find a suitable position for a label where it does not overlap any features or other labels, we move it following the gradient descent of this density map. This guides labels toward nearby areas of low feature density, resulting in a layout where labels are spread around feature-dense areas. The gradient descent trajectory can be used to draw curved leaders that connect the point features to their labels. Additionally, our approach supports prioritized label placement, user-defined label-to-label and label-to-feature margins, obstacle-constrained labeling, and arbitrarily shaped labels. The proposed method is conceptually simple and can easily be implemented using OpenCV and image-processing libraries.

Keywords

Automated label placement Image-based information visualization Kernel density estimation 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

MvG was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement No. 319209 (project NEXUS 1492).

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  • Antoine Lhuillier
    • 1
  • Mereke van Garderen
    • 2
    Email author
  • Daniel Weiskopf
    • 1
  1. 1.University of StuttgartStuttgartGermany
  2. 2.University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany

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