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## Annotations

Annotations are objects in the visualization window that convey information about the plots. Annotations can be global objects that show information such as database name, or they can be objects like plot legends that are directly tied to plots. Annotations are an essential component of a good visualization because they make it clear what is being visualized and they make the visualization appear more polished.

VisIt supports a few different annotation types that can be used to enhance visualizations. The first category of annotations includes global annotations like database name, user name, and plot legends. These annotations convey a good deal of information about what is being visualized, what values are in the plots, and who created the visualization. The second category of annotations include the plot axes and labels. This group of annotations comes in two groups: 2D, and 3D. The attributes for the 2D annotations can be set independently of the 3D annotation attributes. Colors can greatly enhance the look of a visualization so VisIt provides controls to set the colors used for annotations and the visualization window that contains them. The third and final category includes annotation objects that can be added to the visualization window. You can add as many annotation objects as you want to a visualization window. The currently supported annotation objects are: 2D text and time slider annotations.