A small demo of a pleasant, yet simple label placement algorithm for densely packed visualizations. The basic idea is to have labels orbit around their target node at a fixed distance, but repeal each other, so that they don't overlap, and orient themselves to the outside of clusters. To support that, labels on the right of their target node are left-aligned, and labels on the left of their target node are right-aligned; in between, we interpolate. In this example, one force layout governs the node placement, and the second one the label placement, but of course, the node placement could be computed by any other algorithm.
I first used this label placement in the MPG research networks project and owe the basic idea to Cedric Kiefer.
Dear Moritz,
This is really useful!
I have also tried using d3 force layouts for label placement (with a lesser degree of success ;) ).
I had a question on Stackoverflow regarding this a while ago:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5833695/bubble-chart-label-placement-algorithm-preferably-in-javascript
Before playing around with your code, what do you think about using it for scatter chart label placement?
Thanks!