Metric and nonmetric plotting models

A problem with standard printer scatterplot routines is that points are not adequately labeled. Four methods of generating printer plots are presented. All four methods allow multi-character point labels, and three of the methods can guarantee that no portion of the labels are hidden. This is accomplished by using varying amounts of metric and nonmetric distance information to locate the points.The author wishes to thank Warren Sarle and Forrest Young who provided many valuable suggestions during the development of PROC IDPLOT.The methods and procedure described in this paper were developed by the author at the University of North Carolina as a part of a software development project funded by SAS Institute Inc.