Approaches presented herein enable optimizing a display of tabular data from a 2-D table as a folding 3-D table having a plurality of vectors in a GUI. More specifically, a scaling ratio is calculated to fit the plurality of vectors within a display area of the GUI based on a cumulative width of the plurality of vectors and a width of the display area of the GUI. A maximum angle of rotation for at least one vector is calculated based on a legibility of the vector. The scaling ratio can be applied to a width of at least one vector to yield a modified width of the vector. The 2-D table is then rendered as a 3-D table in which the at least one vector is depicted as a modified vector angled within a maximum angle of rotation between a horizontal and a vertical axis.