The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Many computing devices, including portable devices, support software applications that display interactive digital maps. Some of these software applications are developed primarily for providing interactive digital maps. Other software applications, such as web browsers, may display interactive digital maps along with other content. Often, these digital maps display numerous geographic features (e.g., roads, cities, neighborhoods, points of interest) that have names, numerical designations, or other identifiers. These identifiers are often displayed as alphanumeric labels overlaying the digital map. When the amount of information displayed in viewport is large, such as when the map displays an urban area, it is difficult to display numerous labels at the same time without overlap.