Design Aspects of Dynamic Label Placement in Interactive 3D Information-Rich Virtual Environments Using Meta-Heuristics: Grey Wolf Optimizer and Simulated Annealing

Callout annotations are crucial elements in information-rich virtual environments such as Serious Games. However, their arrangement within the view management is challenging and can lead to occlusions of the annotated objects or overall visual clutter, also depending on the user's perspective and position in the virtual scene (e.g., in the medium of a Virtual Re-ality). Such issues can impair the overall quality of experience for users. In this paper, we introduce 20 design criteria for defining callout arrangements in interactive 3D information-rich virtual environments. We investigate the use of two meta-heuristics (the grey wolf optimizer (GWO) and simulated annealing (SA)) for handling the arrangement challenges by incorporating a sub-set of our criteria. Based on the results of our study, we conclude that SA's output was significantly preferred by our participants compared to two GWO versions, a heuristically altered SA, and also a random solution.