
Map Labeling Algorithms with Application in Graph Drawing and Cartography (2008) [pdf] - Tomte
http://algo.inf.uni-tuebingen.de/mitarbeiter/michaelbekos/pubs/bekos-phd-thesis.pdf
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erex78
Here's another take for actually placing labels on the map (and not out at the
boundary):
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US10102669B2/](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10102669B2/).
(Disclosure, I'm one of the authors of this approach.)

The patent is kind of hard to read, but the basic idea is to choose a number
of labels in a region (ie. a map-tile) by the relative density of labels in
that region to surrounding ones and then sample them according to some
ranking. This preserves relative density so that more populated areas visually
have more labels. This works for data too, not just map labels.

~~~
jacobolus
> This works for data too, not just map labels.

But only in a couple decades when the patent expires....

Can you recommend any publicly available papers describing methods which can
be used in freely licensed software?

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jacobolus
What made you (Tomte) link to this thesis in particular? Is there some
context? Did you use this in your work?

How does it compare to other map labeling work? Are there practical
implementations available somewhere?

I don’t have time to look at a 200-page technical monograph right now, but
I’ll try to skim it later. (I have a practical interest in this topic
[https://talk.observablehq.com/t/placement-of-diagram-
labels/...](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/placement-of-diagram-labels/2207))

