A building label placement method for 3D visualizations based on candidate label evaluation and selection

Abstract

ABSTRACTAdding building labels greatly improves the recognizability of buildings and the readability of three-dimensional (3D) city scenes. However, building label placement is much more complex in 3D scenes than in two-dimensional (2D) maps. The annotation effect is influenced by the attributes of the 3D label, building visibility, and the spatial relationship between the building and viewpoint. In this context, automatically generating building labels for 3D scenes during interactions requires highly complex computations. By contrast, evaluating candidate labels and then selecting the suitable label for each building can be effectively implemented. This paper introduces an approach for labeling buildings in 3D scenes based on evaluations of label candidates. The proposed method predefines a candidate label set for each building. These candidates are then evaluated in terms of their attributes and the relationship between the labels and viewpoint at runtime. The best candidate label, or a situational alternative for each building, is then placed in order of comprehensive label priority to avoid annotation conflicts. A series of experiments demonstrate that this method effectively enhances the correlation of labels and buildings, improves interactive efficiency, and realizes a viable global label layout.