When visualizing information, it is often essential to display data with a graphical object. This means that text labels have to be associated with graphical features. Until now, the placement of labels is primarily performed manually, particularly in map production. For example, in the area of Cartography, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Graph Drawing map labeling usually has to be performed efficiently. Therefore, it is highly desirable to use automatic map labeling algorithms. The ACM Computational Geometry Task Force Force (1996) has identified label placement as an important area of research.