How to avoid text overlapping automatically in plot3?

Hello guys,

I have a few points in 3d space indicating the reduction of error. As you can see from the plot there are some points overlapping with each other. How can I avoid this automatically? Add blank space before the numeral manually is not a good option.

Another thing is that how can I make this indication of error reduction visually better? Maybe add some arrow on the line? Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Jan]

You want to set the positions of the labels considering 2 criteria:

• The text areas do not overlap
• The labels appear next to the data points, such that it is clear to which point they belong to

The problem is not trivial, because the 2nd criterion cannot be defined easily in mathematical terms. It is a complicated optimization problem which must take into account the visual reception system of humen. In addition the solution will depend on the medium the diagram is displayed on: You can simply and intuitively rotate it in 3D on the screen to "look behind the labels": Users are used to change their 3D position to look behind obstacles. But this fails, when the diagram is printed on paper.

Do you simply want to visualize the results of some computations or is you goal writing a PhD about optimal label placement in scientific publications?

I'd decide for short labels and a legend. Even then an overlap can and will happen if the view angle is fixed, but it will be much faster to control this manually.

[Xiaohan Du]

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the reply! I simply want to visualize the tendency of error reduction in a 3d space. The goal is to show the error reduction clearly, and I'd like to show the route too. Here is the data of [x, y, error]:

a =

     25.0000   25.0000    0.0519
     25.0000    1.0000    0.0083
      1.0000   23.0000    0.0027
     24.0000   13.0000    0.0011
      1.0000   14.0000    0.0006
     25.0000   13.0000    0.0003
     10.0000   16.0000    0.0003
     21.0000   22.0000    0.0001

and I draw the ideal plot by hand like this (different data but same idea):

I use some arrows at line end to show the route of decay in 3D space, but it doesn't look very nice. Any better ideas?