Petr SOUKUP, Michal VOTOČEK

Automatic area feature label placement

Soukup, P., Votoček, M.: Automatic area feature label placement. Kartografické listy, 2005, 13, 6 figs., 7 refs.

Abstract: Automatic generation of maps is an important task of digital cartography. It includes also automatic label placement which consists of labeling a set of features (points, lines, areas). Label placement is not exactly defined in a map and so it can be optimized to reduce overlaps labels or overlap labels with other labels or another elements of the map content. The article is focused on the automatic placement of area feature labels. Main problem of area labeling is presented by small areas and areas of irregular shape which do not allow to fit the requested la-bel into the area with preservation of legible height of label. The paper introduces the algorithm for elimination the conflicts in positions of area labels, which also allows to place the area label outside the area. Allowed positions of area labels are limited only by condition that at least one point of label bounding box lies inside the area. Next part of the article presents using of automatic area label placement for production of ownership maps during the land consolidation process.

Keywords: automatic map labeling, area label placement, centroid, conflict zone, overview map, land consolidation