Hi Lukas,

It likes the MapTextLabeller curves text labels along lines by default... a quick look in the Label Manager documentation didn't show an option to turn this behavior off.

But, hey, what about the Labeller? This transformer places labels "at a regular perpendicular distance from the closest point on the line at some interval" with a rotation perpendicular to the line.

One objection to the use of this Labeller might be the lack of an option to set a halo around the label. We passed the output of the Labeller to the MapnikRasterizer to set the color and the radius of the halo around text elements.

HTH,

Egge-Jan

Hi @egge​ , I have huge amount of large labels (lots of cable numbers). I switch from Labeller to MapTextLabeller, because it have much smarter label placement for overlapping labels. It works great. It only has one flaw...

Does MapText Inc. still support this add-on to FME? The Label Manager User’s Guide which comes wit FME is Copyright © 2011 MapText, Inc... 2011...

You might contact them to see what they can do.

(BTW - just one flaw? Sounds like almost perfect...:-))

I didn't know who developing MapTextLabeller. Thanks. I will ask them

Here is the answer from MapText:

Thank you for trying out the MapTextLabeller transformer. I'm glad to hear that it could serve your needs. The MapTextLabeller is built on a label placement engine that provides many more options than what is exposed in the user interface of the transformer. One of them is the ability to configure the engine to either place the label conforming to the shape of the line feature or to place the label tangent to the line feature (straight). Currently, this option is not exposed (so conform to the feature is the default). So I will note for this option to be exposed in the user interface for the next release in the near future and let you know once it has been released.

Ah, OK - the MapTextLabeller is an extra-cost plugin for FME. And also other CAD and GIS platforms, as you can see here: MapText.

So, I was correct in thinking that it is not possible to create straight labels with the current version available for FME. But anyway, good to hear that MapText will add this option to place the label tangent to the line feature (straight) in 'the near future'.

I guess you can close the call now by marking the MapText answer as Best. In this way your question will be marked as Answered.