[GRASSLIST:3967] Re: A question about labeling

[Steve Kimball]

GRASS needs an automated way of labeling streets, landmarks,
waterbodies, highways, soil samples, ...
The U.S. Census Bureau worked with Rutgers to develop a
label placement program.  You can see how it works on their
map server pages for the American Fact Finder and  an earlier
generation of web mapper called the TIGER Mapping Service.
The Rutgers program has since been commercialized as Label-EZ by a
company named MapText at www.maptext.com.
So the Census Bureau realized there was a need to label maps,
and their approach labeled ESRI data in ArcInfo products.
Still not a GRASS solution.  Yes, I can use v.label to label
one at a time, but that's too tedious to be useful.

Steve

Radim Blazek wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday 25 June 2002 06:33 pm, Steve Kimball wrote:
> > On Sunday 24 March 2002 02:29 pm, Ben Logan wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > My question is regarding the positioning of labels.  Once I have
> > > labels attached to a vector map, do I have to position each one
> > > manually?  For example, if I am labeling roads with their names and
> > > numbers, I want the labels to clearly identify the roads.  It would be
> > > good if long names could follow the curvature of the roads.  In tight
> > > spots, there might be a leader arrow pointing to a road segment that
> > > allows the label to be moved into a more open area.  What I'm talking
> > > about is pretty much standard for printed maps, e.g. county maps, or
> > > even the online maps available through Yahoo.
> > >
> > > Does each label have to be manually positioned, or is there a piece of
> > > software that can determine the best position for the labels?
> 
> v.label: http://mpa.itc.it/radim/g50/lab.pdf
> (the position is not best; no arrows)
> 
> Radim