LabelCollection

new Cesium.LabelCollection(options)

A renderable collection of labels. Labels are viewport-aligned text positioned in the 3D scene. Each label can have a different font, color, scale, etc.


Example labels


Labels are added and removed from the collection using LabelCollection#add and LabelCollection#remove.
Performance:

For best performance, prefer a few collections, each with many labels, to many collections with only a few labels each. Avoid having collections where some labels change every frame and others do not; instead, create one or more collections for static labels, and one or more collections for dynamic labels.

Name Type Description
options Object optional Object with the following properties:
Name Type Default Description
modelMatrix Matrix4 Matrix4.IDENTITY optional The 4x4 transformation matrix that transforms each label from model to world coordinates.
debugShowBoundingVolume Boolean false optional For debugging only. Determines if this primitive's commands' bounding spheres are shown.
scene Scene optional Must be passed in for labels that use the height reference property or will be depth tested against the globe.
blendOption BlendOption BlendOption.OPAQUE_AND_TRANSLUCENT optional The label blending option. The default is used for rendering both opaque and translucent labels. However, if either all of the labels are completely opaque or all are completely translucent, setting the technique to BillboardRenderTechnique.OPAQUE or BillboardRenderTechnique.TRANSLUCENT can improve performance by up to 2x.
Example:
// Create a label collection with two labels
var labels = scene.primitives.add(new Cesium.LabelCollection());
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(1.0, 2.0, 3.0),
  text : 'A label'
});
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(4.0, 5.0, 6.0),
  text : 'Another label'
});
Demo:
See:

Members

blendOption : BlendOption

The label blending option. The default is used for rendering both opaque and translucent labels. However, if either all of the labels are completely opaque or all are completely translucent, setting the technique to BillboardRenderTechnique.OPAQUE or BillboardRenderTechnique.TRANSLUCENT can improve performance by up to 2x.
Default Value: BlendOption.OPAQUE_AND_TRANSLUCENT

debugShowBoundingVolume : Boolean

This property is for debugging only; it is not for production use nor is it optimized.

Draws the bounding sphere for each draw command in the primitive.

Default Value: false

length : Number

Returns the number of labels in this collection. This is commonly used with LabelCollection#get to iterate over all the labels in the collection.

modelMatrix : Matrix4

The 4x4 transformation matrix that transforms each label in this collection from model to world coordinates. When this is the identity matrix, the labels are drawn in world coordinates, i.e., Earth's WGS84 coordinates. Local reference frames can be used by providing a different transformation matrix, like that returned by Transforms.eastNorthUpToFixedFrame.
Default Value: Matrix4.IDENTITY
Example:
var center = Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-75.59777, 40.03883);
labels.modelMatrix = Cesium.Transforms.eastNorthUpToFixedFrame(center);
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
  text     : 'Center'
});
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(1000000.0, 0.0, 0.0),
  text     : 'East'
});
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(0.0, 1000000.0, 0.0),
  text     : 'North'
});
labels.add({
  position : new Cesium.Cartesian3(0.0, 0.0, 1000000.0),
  text     : 'Up'
});

Methods

add(options) → Label

Creates and adds a label with the specified initial properties to the collection. The added label is returned so it can be modified or removed from the collection later.
Performance:

Calling add is expected constant time. However, the collection's vertex buffer is rewritten; this operations is O(n) and also incurs CPU to GPU overhead. For best performance, add as many billboards as possible before calling update.

Name Type Description
options Object optional A template describing the label's properties as shown in Example 1.
Returns:
The label that was added to the collection.
Throws:
  • DeveloperError : This object was destroyed, i.e., destroy() was called.
Examples:
// Example 1:  Add a label, specifying all the default values.
var l = labels.add({
  show : true,
  position : Cesium.Cartesian3.ZERO,
  text : '',
  font : '30px sans-serif',
  fillColor : Cesium.Color.WHITE,
  outlineColor : Cesium.Color.BLACK,
  outlineWidth : 1.0,
  showBackground : false,
  backgroundColor : new Cesium.Color(0.165, 0.165, 0.165, 0.8),
  backgroundPadding : new Cesium.Cartesian2(7, 5),
  style : Cesium.LabelStyle.FILL,
  pixelOffset : Cesium.Cartesian2.ZERO,
  eyeOffset : Cesium.Cartesian3.ZERO,
  horizontalOrigin : Cesium.HorizontalOrigin.LEFT,
  verticalOrigin : Cesium.VerticalOrigin.BASELINE,
  scale : 1.0,
  translucencyByDistance : undefined,
  pixelOffsetScaleByDistance : undefined,
  heightReference : HeightReference.NONE,
  distanceDisplayCondition : undefined
});
// Example 2:  Specify only the label's cartographic position,
// text, and font.
var l = labels.add({
  position : Cesium.Cartesian3.fromRadians(longitude, latitude, height),
  text : 'Hello World',
  font : '24px Helvetica',
});
See:

contains(label) → Boolean

Check whether this collection contains a given label.
Name Type Description
label Label The label to check for.
Returns:
true if this collection contains the label, false otherwise.
See:

destroy() → undefined

Destroys the WebGL resources held by this object. Destroying an object allows for deterministic release of WebGL resources, instead of relying on the garbage collector to destroy this object.

Once an object is destroyed, it should not be used; calling any function other than isDestroyed will result in a DeveloperError exception. Therefore, assign the return value (undefined) to the object as done in the example.
Returns:
Throws:
  • DeveloperError : This object was destroyed, i.e., destroy() was called.
Example:
labels = labels && labels.destroy();
See:

get(index) → Label

Returns the label in the collection at the specified index. Indices are zero-based and increase as labels are added. Removing a label shifts all labels after it to the left, changing their indices. This function is commonly used with LabelCollection#length to iterate over all the labels in the collection.
Performance:

Expected constant time. If labels were removed from the collection and Scene#render was not called, an implicit O(n) operation is performed.

Name Type Description
index Number The zero-based index of the billboard.
Returns:
The label at the specified index.
Throws:
  • DeveloperError : This object was destroyed, i.e., destroy() was called.
Example:
// Toggle the show property of every label in the collection
var len = labels.length;
for (var i = 0; i < len; ++i) {
  var l = billboards.get(i);
  l.show = !l.show;
}
See:

isDestroyed() → Boolean

Returns true if this object was destroyed; otherwise, false.

If this object was destroyed, it should not be used; calling any function other than isDestroyed will result in a DeveloperError exception.
Returns:
True if this object was destroyed; otherwise, false.
See:

remove(label) → Boolean

Removes a label from the collection. Once removed, a label is no longer usable.
Performance:

Calling remove is expected constant time. However, the collection's vertex buffer is rewritten - an O(n) operation that also incurs CPU to GPU overhead. For best performance, remove as many labels as possible before calling update. If you intend to temporarily hide a label, it is usually more efficient to call Label#show instead of removing and re-adding the label.

Name Type Description
label Label The label to remove.
Returns:
true if the label was removed; false if the label was not found in the collection.
Throws:
  • DeveloperError : This object was destroyed, i.e., destroy() was called.
Example:
var l = labels.add(...);
labels.remove(l);  // Returns true
See:

removeAll()

Removes all labels from the collection.
Performance:

O(n). It is more efficient to remove all the labels from a collection and then add new ones than to create a new collection entirely.

Throws:
  • DeveloperError : This object was destroyed, i.e., destroy() was called.
Example:
labels.add(...);
labels.add(...);
labels.removeAll();
See: