Clarity and Computational Efficiency of Orbital Boundary Labeling

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Wallinger, Markus, Bonerath, Annika, Terziadis, Soeren, Wulms, Jules, Nöllenburg, Martin
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Wallinger, Markus
Bonerath, Annika
Terziadis, Soeren
Wulms, Jules
Nöllenburg, Martin
author_facet Wallinger, Markus
Bonerath, Annika
Terziadis, Soeren
Wulms, Jules
Nöllenburg, Martin
contents Circular interfaces such as those found on smartwatches, automotive dashboards, cockpit instruments, or in radial visualizations pose unique challenges for placing readable labels. Traditional rectangular labeling methods waste screen space and create visual clutter on these constrained displays. In orbital boundary labeling, the labels (e.g., the features' names) are placed in an annulus-shaped orbit outside of the figure, and each label is connected to its feature using a short, crossing-free leader line. We contribute algorithms to compute two leader styles, orbital-radial and straight-line, for uniform and non-uniform label sizes, optimizing for crossing-free shortest leaders. We evaluate the model and the algorithms with computational experiments and a controlled user experiment. The user experiment reveals that both leader types exhibit similar accuracy, but straight-line leaders yield faster response times.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_08657
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Clarity and Computational Efficiency of Orbital Boundary Labeling
Wallinger, Markus
Bonerath, Annika
Terziadis, Soeren
Wulms, Jules
Nöllenburg, Martin
Human-Computer Interaction
Circular interfaces such as those found on smartwatches, automotive dashboards, cockpit instruments, or in radial visualizations pose unique challenges for placing readable labels. Traditional rectangular labeling methods waste screen space and create visual clutter on these constrained displays. In orbital boundary labeling, the labels (e.g., the features' names) are placed in an annulus-shaped orbit outside of the figure, and each label is connected to its feature using a short, crossing-free leader line. We contribute algorithms to compute two leader styles, orbital-radial and straight-line, for uniform and non-uniform label sizes, optimizing for crossing-free shortest leaders. We evaluate the model and the algorithms with computational experiments and a controlled user experiment. The user experiment reveals that both leader types exhibit similar accuracy, but straight-line leaders yield faster response times.
title Clarity and Computational Efficiency of Orbital Boundary Labeling
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08657