Automated cartographic text placement

The most time-consuming task of producing a map-after data collection-is that of labeling the point, line, and area features depicted on it. It is a task that has been performed by skilled human cartographers for centuries but one that has proven remarkably resistant to automation. The paper describes a research and development effort extending over nearly 25 years to develop a software system that would automate this task. The software now available embodies the cartographer's rules and conventions and places the text for each feature according to a user-specified scenario, resolving placement conflicts and ambiguities over all feature layers in accordance with set placement priorities. Placement alternatives are automatically explored if the initial placement choice is not available because of lack of space, in a manner analogous to what a human cartographer could be expected to do under the same circumstances. The paper reviews the issues posed by the text placement problem and describes the solution for it that is now available.