How to improve the label placement in scatter plot

Question

I use matplotlib to plot a scatter chart: And label the bubble using a transparent box according to the tip at How to annotate point on a scatter automatically placed arrow Here is the code: ``` if show_annote: for i in range(len(x)): annote_text = annotes[i][0][0] # STK_ID ax.annotate(annote_text, xy=(x[i], y[i]), xytext=(-10,3), textcoords='offset points', ha='center', va='bottom', bbox=dict(boxstyle='round,pad=0.2', fc='yellow', alpha=0.2), fontproperties=ANNOTE_FONT) ``` and the resulting plot: But there is still room for improvement to reduce overlap (for instance the label box offset is fixed as (-10,3)). Are there algorithms that can: - dynamically change the offset of label box according to the crowdedness of its neighbourhood - dynamically place the label box remotely and add an arrow line beween bubble and label box - somewhat change the label orientation - label_box overlapping bubble is better than label_box overlapping label_box? I just want to make the chart easy for hum…

Accepted Answer

Another option using my library `adjustText`, written specially for this purpose (https://github.com/Phlya/adjustText).

```
from adjustText import adjust_text
np.random.seed(2016)

N = 50
scatter_data = np.random.rand(N, 3)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1],
           c=scatter_data[:, 2], s=scatter_data[:, 2] * 150)
labels = ['ano_{}'.format(i) for i in range(N)]
texts = []
for x, y, text in zip(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1], labels):
    texts.append(ax.text(x, y, text))
plt.show()
```

```
np.random.seed(2016)

N = 50
scatter_data = np.random.rand(N, 3)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1],
           c=scatter_data[:, 2], s=scatter_data[:, 2] * 150)
labels = ['ano_{}'.format(i) for i in range(N)]
texts = []
for x, y, text in zip(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1], labels):
    texts.append(ax.text(x, y, text))
adjust_text(texts, force_text=0.05, arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle="-|>",
                                                    color='r', alpha=0.5))
plt.show()
```

It doesn't repel from the bubbles, only from their centers and other texts.

How to improve the label placement in scatter plot

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