Adaptive multi-resolution labeling in virtual landscapes

Abstract

Labeling plays an important role in map production, attaching specific texts to related geographic elements to provide clear environmental references. In three-dimensional geographical information systems (3DGISs), however, cluttering happens fairly commonly because of the unexpected overlapping and occlusion among labels and related objects, and results in an ambiguous and obscure environment. It generally also takes large computing power and memory to visualize spatial entities. Aimed at both unambiguous and efficient 3D map display, this article proposes an adaptive multi-resolution labeling method to deal with point, polyline, and polygon features labeling in a 3D landscape. It implements adaptive placement and view-driven label filtering without obscuring other visual features. The experiments indicated that the display of overlapping labels and label popping are reduced significantly with less computation burden while retaining the rendering quality.