How to stop crossing/overlapping lines?

[olgabot]

Thank you for this package! It's very helpful to label a complicated plot.

I have a PCA plot that I'd like to annotate with the labels, and no matter what I do, the lines always end up crossing:

Two questions:

1. Is there a flag or parameter that can be used to prevent the lines from crossing?
2. Is there a flag or parameter to ensure that the labels are always "outward" from the data, i.e. pushed out using a unit circle from the middle of the plot?

Thanks!
Olga

[Phlya]

Hi Olga, thanks for your interest!

1. No, sorry, this is not implemented and I don't know how to do this, but will be very happy to consider a PR. In your case, I would try reducing the repelling forces to make texts adjust slower, in the end it often looks less messy then.
2. No, but if you would be fine with using a rectangle, and not a circle, you could try adding an invisible one to the area you want the labels to avoid, and add it via adjust_text(..., add_objects=[obj]) - any object that has a .get_window_extent() method should work (since I use bounding boxes to calculate overlaps, I'm limited to rectangles).

Please let me know if this helps, or if you have any other questions!

Ilya

[Phlya]

It's been a while, so closing.