Turning labels off within polygon in QGIS Atlas

Question

Is there a setting to turn off labels within a polygon in an Atlas?

In the example below I don't want labels to show in the grey inset area.

I have tried the new clipping functionality

All the label data to be clipped is in the chosen file DSC_Point_Symbology

The AOI (grey area) is defined as follows so that any area in a map frame that's not the current AOI is covered.

It's only the labels in the grey area that should not be shown, the labels from the same data should be shown in the other areas. The symbol should be shown in all areas.

I am using QGIS 3.22

I have checked Removing labels from area that is also shown on inset map using QGIS and as zoom level and the input features are relatively dynamic having to process all the labels separately seems inefficient.

Can a polygon from the map be selected in the Label Settings -> Placement -> Label Blocking items?

UPDATE as per @Pieter's response.

The labels don't show now anywhere in the map (blue highlight compared to previous screengrab). They should only be removed from the grey area.

---

Example and notes

Please download https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hVNCXfY8Zgvag1NFB3zjNoyYk7OSwZib/view?usp=sharing

This is just a quick example with some training data, packed using QPackage.

See map 7 and 12. 12 is a small area of map 7 but as the features are complex in it, I want it covered and the labels under it to not show. The labels should show in the rest of the map.

So in the zoomed out map (7) all the labels (yellow highlight) in the grey section should not show but they must be visible in the rest of the map.

On Inset 1 (map 13), the grey border should not be shown.

I'd say we need to forget about the atlas initially and see if labels can be clipped / masked by a polygon?

Answer 1

You could define an expression-based value on the labelfields.

if(intersects($geometry, @atlas_geometry), '', "labelfield")

This expression gives no label if it intersects the atlas_geometry. If not, a label will appear

Answer 2

Based on my understanding, you have Atlas layer that contain polygon. Some are made to be set the view on a regional scale and some are made to get a view at a local scale. These polygons can cross one another.

In your example, you want to show a label that is in your map view, but that doesn't cross other polygons existing in your atlas layer.

The solution would be to set your atlas layer to not render the current polygon used for atlas. You will get the same result as you show in your screenshot. Then you set the label in your atlas layer to be blocking. Only the feature not used as atlas will block the label to be created.

The problem will still exist for your city map atlas feature as the polygon for regional map will be also visible and will block your label. To solve this, you could add a rule of visibility based on scale to have no atlas feature shown at the smallest scale.