Map use: reading,analysis, interpretation

This paper presents a method of combining text and icon label placement in a real-time computing environment. The method computes label configurations based on placement properties, cartographic disturbance, and label overlap. The process is divided into four phases. In the first phase, candidate positions of the text labels are chosen. In the second phase, the same is done for the icon labels. The choice of candidate positions is based on cartographic preference and cartographic disturbance. The removal of overlap between labels is solved, in the third phase, by means of a combinatorial optimization technique (simulated annealing). When there are label pairs in conflict that could not be resolved, the fourth and final step is executed to remove one label in the pair. The success of the proposed method lies in the ability to effectively reduce the search space for the combinatorial optimization. A number of strategies for reducing search space have been evaluated in a case study. The results show that a good search-space-reduction strategy will lead to acceptable solutions for text and icon labeling within a limited processing time.