5 Replies Latest reply on Dec 2, 2013 8:44 AM by Noel Avison

What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Noel Avison Nov 18, 2013 9:58 AM

I have drawn custom polygons on top of an image background and I would like to have them labeled. Is there an easy way to do this without annotating an area for each one? I have tried annotating each one, but there is a large number of polygons so this becomes tedious. Another problem with this is that when you click on the polygon, the annotated point gets in the way and you end up selecting that instead of the actual polygon. Does anyone have any suggestions?

1. Re: What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Allan Walker Nov 18, 2013 10:43 AM (in response to Noel Avison)

Noel,

Does the polygon have a centroid (assuming you wish to label this position)? The quickest method is to do a dual-axis, and then in the second mark type, choose your polygon ID as the label.

Best Regards,

Allan
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2. Re: What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Noel Avison Nov 18, 2013 11:22 AM (in response to Allan Walker)

I was having trouble with the having the center point because it would make the point order mess up. I fixed it though but making a new field that had the centroid points as their own polygons with 1 point so that it would separate the polygons from the label points. The centroids were still had the field with their true ID so that I could label them correctly. Also I made the label field only show centroid points so that it wouldn't label the corners of my box polygons on the dual axis.

Thanks for the tip. I knew it had to be something with a simple dual axis but I was having trouble getting it to work at first. I was even duplicated the data source to use independant filters on the regular and dual axis and it was getting to be a mess.
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3. Re: What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Allan Walker Nov 18, 2013 11:34 AM (in response to Noel Avison)

Noel,

You're welcome. PS the viz looks great.

Best Regards,

Allan
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4. Re: What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Gargi Chakraborty Nov 21, 2013 11:43 AM (in response to Noel Avison)

Hi Noel,

I'm trying to do something similar with custom polygons. I have defined X, Y and PointOrder for the polygons. I have also separately defined the Centroid's X, Y and PointOrder = 1. When I add the Centroid's X and Y to the Column & Row shelves, and choose mark type "text", I get 3 total labels. One of these labels is in the center as desired, but the other two are at the edges of the polygon (see image)
.
How did you get rid of the labels for the corners of the boxes in your example? Any tips?

Thanks,
Gargi
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5. Re: What is the easiest way to label custom polygons?

Noel Avison Dec 2, 2013 8:44 AM (in response to Gargi Chakraborty)

Ya, so for the label, you need to first define which points are center points. It is probably simplest to make it a binary field. Something like Centroid : Yes/No or whatever. Then for your label field, you need to make it, IIF([Centroid] = Yes, [PolygonLabel], ""). That way, only centroid points will show up on the label.
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