Axis Tick Labels Overlap

I am using the Qwt plotting library to draw some basic type plots and charts. In the application, we also allow people to include a grid of plots that are shown in the window.

My problem is that when the plot gets too small and the user wants to see larger fonts on the axis labels, the axis labels will draw on top of each other and then they can become unreadable. (See attached picture).

Attachment 4731

Background:

[LIST=1]We are using manual scaling for the axis. I.E. We are setting them manually so that we can control what portion of the curve to draw on the screen.

Code:

---

QwtPlot::setAxisScale(_axis, _axisMin, _axisMax);

---

1. We do not set the max major, medium, or minor number of ticks.

Can anyone help me figure this out. I think that I have tried everything that I can think of, but I still can't figure it out.

Thanks

When there is not enough space for displaying the tick labels then there is not enough space for displaying them. You can increase the size of the plot reduce the font size or manipulate the number and position of the major ticks.

Most widgets won't be displayed properly when you don't respect their sizeHint/minimumSizeHint.

Uwe

Uwe,

I would gladly change the number of ticks shown to fit in the space provided for the plot, but I don't know, prior to drawing, how many ticks are going to displayed and how large the fonts will be for each one. If I knew this or if you could tell me how to find this out and what class or sub-class from, then I would be able to remove every other tick label from the axis widget so that they had enough space. Any guidance on this would be appreciated. Also, if there is another way this could be done, I am open to suggestions.

Amos

I finally figured out how to prevent the tick labels from overlapping. The key was to re-implement the QwtAbstractScaleDraw::draw(QPainter *, const QPallette &) function and roll my own.

Once inside the draw function, I can calculate the size of the tick labels and determine if they are going to overlap. If they do, then I start deleting every other one in order so that they don't appear jumpy when panning. Here is my code.

Warning: I made a couple of presumptions in my code because I always just tick labels which are not rotated and always center aligned.

Code:

---

// Get the major tick values
    QList<double> major_ticks = scaleDiv().ticks(QwtScaleDiv::MajorTick);
    QList<QRect> label_rects;
 
    // Remove the unused ticks
    for(i = major_ticks.count(); --i >= 0;)
    {
      if(!scaleDiv().contains(major_ticks[i]))
      {
	major_ticks.removeAt(i);
      }
    }
 
    // Compute the rectangles of the major ticks
    for (i = 0; i < major_ticks.size(); i++)
    {
      QRect bounds = boundingLabelRect(painter->font(), major_ticks[i]);
      int half_padding = painter->font().pointSize() / 4;
 
      if(orientation() == Qt::Horizontal)
      {
	bounds.adjust(-half_padding, 0, half_padding, 0);
      }
      else
      {
	bounds.adjust(0, -half_padding / 2, 0, half_padding / 2);
      }
      label_rects.append(bounds);
    }
 
    // Now remove the overlapping tick labels
    bool overlap_found = false;
    do
    {
      overlap_found = false;
      for(i = 1; i < label_rects.size(); i++)
      {
	QRect last_rect = label_rects.at(i-1);
	QRect current_rect = label_rects.at(i);
 
	// Check if they overlap
	if(current_rect.intersects(last_rect))
	{
	  overlap_found = true;
	  break;
	}
      }
 
      if(overlap_found)
      {
	// Now remove the next to last tick if the number is even
	if((major_ticks.size() % 2) == 0)
	{
	  // Remove the next to last tick
	  if(major_ticks.size() > 2)
	  {
	    label_rects.removeAt(major_ticks.size() - 2);
	    major_ticks.removeAt(major_ticks.size() - 2);
	  }
	}
 
	// Remove every other one starting at the second tick mark
	for(i = (major_ticks.size() / 2) * 2 - 1; i >= 0; i -= 2)
	{
	  label_rects.removeAt(i);
	  major_ticks.removeAt(i);
	}
      }
    } while(overlap_found);
 
    // Now draw the remaining tick labels
    for (int i = 0; i < major_ticks.size(); i++)
    {
      drawLabel(painter, major_ticks[i]);
    }

---

I hope that someone else can benefit from my struggles.

If you have any improvements on my code, please send them on.