Next Previous Up Contents
Next: arealabel
Up: Layer Types
Previous: linearfit

#### 8.3.25 `label`

Draws a text label at each position. You can select the font, where the labels appear in relation to the point positions, and how crowded the points have to get before they are suppressed.

Usage Overview:

       layerN=label texttypeN=plain|antialias|latex fontsizeN=<int-value>
                    fontstyleN=standard|serif|mono
                    fontweightN=plain|bold|italic|bold_italic
                    anchorN=west|east|north|south|center
                    colorN=<rrggbb>|red|blue|... xoffN=<pixels> yoffN=<pixels>
                    spacingN=<pixels> crowdlimitN=<n> <pos-coord-paramsN>
                    labelN=<txt-expr> inN=<table> ifmtN=<in-format>
                    istreamN=true|false icmdN=<cmds>

All the parameters listed here affect only the relevant layer, identified by the suffix `N`.

Positional Coordinate Parameters:
  The positional coordinates `<pos-coord-paramsN>` give a position for each row of the input table. Their form depends on the plot geometry, i.e. which plotting command is used. For a plane plot (`plot2plane`) the parameters would be `xN` and `yN`. The coordinate parameter values are in all cases strings interpreted as numeric expressions based on column names. These can be column names, fixed values or algebraic expressions as described in Section 10.

Example:

       stilts plot2sky in=messier.xml lon=RA lat=DEC
                       layer1=mark size1=3
                       layer2=label label2=NAME color2=black

`anchorN = west|east|north|south|center` (Anchor)
  Determines where the text appears in relation to the plotted points. Values are points of the compass.

  The available options are:

  - `west`
  - `east`
  - `north`
  - `south`
  - `center`

  [Default: `west`]

`colorN = <rrggbb>|red|blue|...` (Color)
  The color of plotted data, given by name or as a hexadecimal RGB value.

  The standard plotting colour names are `red`, `blue`, `green`, `grey`, `magenta`, `cyan`, `orange`, `pink`, `yellow`, `black`, `light_grey`, `white`. However, many other common colour names (too many to list here) are also understood. The list currently contains those colour names understood by most web browsers, from `AliceBlue` to `YellowGreen`, listed e.g. in the Extended color keywords section of the CSS3 standard.

  Alternatively, a six-digit hexadecimal number RRGGBB may be supplied, optionally prefixed by "`#`" or "`0x`", giving red, green and blue intensities, e.g. "`ff00ff`", "`#ff00ff`" or "`0xff00ff`" for magenta.

  [Default: `red`]

`crowdlimitN = <n>` (Integer)
  Sets the maximum number of labels in a label group. This many labels can appear closely spaced without being affected by the label spacing parameter.

  It is useful for instance if you are looking at pairs of points, which will always be close together; if you set this value to 2, an isolated pair of labels can be seen, but if it's 1 then they will only be plotted when they are distant from each other, which may only happen at very high magnifications.

  [Default: `2`]

`fontsizeN = <int-value>` (Integer)
  Size of the text font in points.

  [Default: `12`]

`fontstyleN = standard|serif|mono` (FontType)
  Font style for text.

  The available options are:

  - `standard`
  - `serif`
  - `mono`

  [Default: `standard`]

`fontweightN = plain|bold|italic|bold_italic` (FontWeight)
  Font weight for text.

  The available options are:

  - `plain`
  - `bold`
  - `italic`
  - `bold_italic`

  [Default: `plain`]

`icmdN = <cmds>` (ProcessingStep[])
  Specifies processing to be performed on the layer N input table as specified by parameter `inN`. The value of this parameter is one or more of the filter commands described in Section 6.1. If more than one is given, they must be separated by semicolon characters (";"). This parameter can be repeated multiple times on the same command line to build up a list of processing steps. The sequence of commands given in this way defines the processing pipeline which is performed on the table.

  Commands may alternatively be supplied in an external file, by using the indirection character '`@`'. Thus a value of "`@filename`" causes the file `filename` to be read for a list of filter commands to execute. The commands in the file may be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons, and lines which are blank or which start with a '`#`' character are ignored. A backslash character '`\`' at the end of a line joins it with the following line.

`ifmtN = <in-format>` (String)
  Specifies the format of the input table as specified by parameter `inN`. The known formats are listed in Section 5.1.1. This flag can be used if you know what format your table is in. If it has the special value `(auto)` (the default), then an attempt will be made to detect the format of the table automatically. This cannot always be done correctly however, in which case the program will exit with an error explaining which formats were attempted. This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.

  [Default: `(auto)`]

`inN = <table>` (StarTable)
  The location of the input table. This may take one of the following forms:
  - A filename.
  - A URL.
  - The special value "`-`", meaning standard input. In this case the input format must be given explicitly using the `ifmtN` parameter. Note that not all formats can be streamed in this way.
  - A scheme specification of the form `:<scheme-name>:<scheme-args>`.
  - A system command line with either a "`<`" character at the start, or a "`|`" character at the end ("`<syscmd`" or "`syscmd|`"). This executes the given pipeline and reads from its standard output. This will probably only work on unix-like systems.
  In any case, compressed data in one of the supported compression formats (gzip, Unix compress or bzip2) will be decompressed transparently.
`istreamN = true|false` (Boolean)
  If set true, the input table specified by the `inN` parameter will be read as a stream. It is necessary to give the `ifmtN` parameter in this case. Depending on the required operations and processing mode, this may cause the read to fail (sometimes it is necessary to read the table more than once). It is not normally necessary to set this flag; in most cases the data will be streamed automatically if that is the best thing to do. However it can sometimes result in less resource usage when processing large files in certain formats (such as VOTable). This parameter is ignored for scheme-specified tables.

  [Default: `false`]

`labelN = <txt-expr>` (String)
  Column or expression giving the text of the label to be written near the position being labelled. Label values may be of any type (string or numeric)

  The value is a string algebraic expression based on column names as described in Section 10.

`spacingN = <pixels>` (Integer)
  Determines the closest that labels can be spaced. If a group of labels is closer to another group than the value of this parameter, they will not be drawn, to avoid the display becoming too cluttered. The effect is that you can see individual labels when you zoom in, but not when there are many labelled points plotted close together on the screen. Set the value higher for less cluttered labelling.

  [Default: `12`]

`texttypeN = plain|antialias|latex` (TextSyntax)
  Determines how to turn label text into characters on the plot. `Plain` and `Antialias` both take the text at face value, but `Antialias` smooths the characters. `LaTeX` interprets the text as LaTeX source code and typesets it accordingly.

  When not using LaTeX, antialiased text usually looks nicer, but can be perceptibly slower to plot. At time of writing, on MacOS antialiased text seems to be required to stop the writing coming out upside-down for non-horizontal text (MacOS java bug).

  [Default: `plain`]

`xoffN = <pixels>` (Integer)
  Allows fine adjustment of label positioning in the X direction. The value is a positive or negative pixel offset applied to the position of each plotted label.

  [Default: `0`]

`yoffN = <pixels>` (Integer)
  Allows fine adjustment of label positioning in the Y direction. The value is a positive or negative pixel offset applied to the position of each plotted label.

  [Default: `0`]

Next Previous Up Contents
Next: arealabel
Up: Layer Types
Previous: linearfit

STILTS - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library Tool Set
Starlink User Note256
STILTS web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list: topcat-user@jiscmail.ac.uk