README for: Plot Digitizer

Written by: Joseph A. Huwaldt <jhuwaldt@users.sourceforge.net>

Version: 2.6.6
Date: April 27, 2014
Web site: http://plotdigitizer.sourceforge.net

Plot Digitizer is a Java program used to digitize scanned plots of functional

data. Often data is found presented in reports and references as functional X-Y
type scatter or line plots. In order to use this data, it must somehow be
digitized. This program will allow you to take a scanned image of a plot (in
GIF, JPEG, or PNG format) and quickly digitize values off the plot just by
clicking the mouse on each data point. The numbers can then be saved to a text
file and used where ever you need them. Plot Digitizer works with both linear
and logarithmic axis scales. Besides digitizing points off of data plots, this
program can be used to digitize other types of scanned data (such as scaled
drawings or orthographic photos).

To make the digitizing task easier, this program includes many handy features.
For example: You can recalibrate the Y axis without having to recalibrate the
X axis (multiple sets of data are commonly plotted with the same X axis). You
can insert points between two already digitized points by right clicking and
choosing "Insert" from the pop-up menu. You can delete points by
right-clicking on the points and choosing "Delete". You can move points by
clicking and dragging them. You can compute the length of a digitized curve
and you can compute the area of a digitized polygon. You can zoom images in and
out. You can save calibrations for an image for later use, and finally, there
is unlimited undo/redo.

A special feature of this program is the ability to semi-automatically digitize

lines off a plot. The user simply indicates where the line is on the plot with
a thick paint brush and the program attempts to automatically sort out the data
from grid lines, etc. This auto-digitizing feature depends on an image
vectorization program called "autotrace". In order to use the auto-digitizing
feature, you must have autotrace installed. More information on autotrace can
be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/autotrace/

Will the auto-digitizing feature digitize any plot? Short answer: no. Long
answer: The auto-digitizing feature works best with black and white, 300 dpi
images of continuous data which does not run vertically (vertical lines give it
fits), does not repeatedly cross other data lines, is not close to and parallel
to grid lines, is not extremely noisy and which does not have plot symbols.
After using the program a while you begin to learn what it can and can't
auto-digitize. However, even in cases where it doesn't auto-digitize the entire
line, you can sometimes do a piece of it automatically, then manually digitize
a piece, and then do another piece automatically, etc. I've found this feature
to be pretty useful on digitizing plots of experimental test time histories,
but your mileage may vary.

To use this program, first scan a plot with your favorite scanning system, then
save the plot as a GIF, JPEG, or PNG format file. Run Plot Digitizer, open the
scanned image file from the "Open" command in the "File" menu. Then follow the
instructions at the bottom of the window to calibrate the plot and then
digitize the points.

Most of the source code for Plot Digitizer is protected either by the General
Public License (GPL) or by the Lesser General Public License (Lesser GPL).
Copies of both licenses are provided.
Installation Instructions:

MacOS X:
You should have received this application as a compressed disk image file
(PlotDigitizer_#.#.#_MacOSX.dmg). This disk image file, when mounted (by
double-clicking on it), should contain the application icon (Plot
Digitizer.app, this readme file (README.txt), and some license related legalese.

To install this program, simply drag the Plot Digitizer.app icon to a

convenient location on your hard drive. In MacOS X this is usually the
"Applications" directory, but you are free to put it anywhere you want.

The application file should work properly on MacOS X 10.6 and 10.7 right out of
the box. No additional software required. For MacOS X 10.8 or 10.9, you will
have to have Java 1.7 or later installed. If you do not have Java installed,
you can get it from: http://www.java.com.

If you want to use the auto-digitize feature, you must acquire and install the
autotrace program separately. Also, the autotrace program must appear on the
System search path. I recommend you use either the fink
(http://www.finkproject.org/) or MacPorts (http://www.macports.org/) package
managers to install autotrace. Plot Digitizer will find autotrace
automatically if one of those package managers are used. Otherwise, if you
install autotrace from source or from a binary distribution, make sure the
executable is found in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin.

Windows:
You will first have to make sure that you have Java 1.6 or later installed on
your computer. If you do not, you can get it from: http://www.java.com

You should have received this application as a ZIP archive file

(PlotDigitizer_#.#.#_Windows.zip). Uncompress this archive. It contains an
executable file named PlotDigitizer.exe.

To install this program, simply drag the PlotDigitizer.exe icon to a convenient

location on your hard drive. It should work from anywhere.

If you want to use the auto-digitize feature, you must acquire and install the
autotrace program separately. Also, the autotrace program must appear on the
user's search path. After installing or building autotrace, edit the search
path. To do this, from the "Start" menu choose "Settings" and then "Control
Panel" and from the Control Panel window double-click on "System." Then click
on the "Advanced" tab and then the "Environment Variables" button. Under "User
variables" either select the PATH variable and click on the "Edit" button.
Enter the path to the directory containing the autotrace executable (path items
are separated by semi-colon (";") characters). Otherwise, click on the "New"
button, enter "PATH" for the variable name and enter the path to the directory
containing autotrace for the variable value.

Linux (and many flavors of UNIX):

You will first have to make sure that you have Java 1.6 or later installed on
your computer and on your search path. If you do not, you can get it from:
http://www.java.com

You should have received this application as a compressed archive file

(PlotDigitizer_#.#.#_Linux.tgz). After decompressing this file using "tar -xvzf
PlotDigitizer_#.#.#_Linux.tgz", you will get a file named PlotDigitizer.jar.
This is a "double-clickable" jar file, or you can run it from the command line
using:

java -Xmx256m -jar PlotDigitizer.jar

You may want to create a shell script to do this for you.

If you want to use the auto-digitize feature, you must acquire and install the
autotrace program separately. Also, the autotrace program must appear on the
user's search path.

Revision History:
Version: 2.6.6 27-APR-2014
* Fixed a threading issue that could cause the program to randomly freeze up on
some systems (especially Windows).

Version: 2.6.5 18-APR-2014

* Introduced a French localization of the program.
* Improved internationalization support throughout the program.
* Fixed a bug that would cause the program to calculate the incorrect polygon
area in many cases.
* Program now requires Java 1.6 or later.

Version: 2.6.4 09-FEB-2014

* Another attempt at fixing an illusive bug where the open dialog will
sometimes fail on Linux systems.

Version: 2.6.3 05-JUL-2013

* The output CSV file format has been changed back to the pre 2.6.0 format and
now (once again) always writes out numbers in the US Locale (preventing commas
from being output that indicate the ones place in some locales).
* The values written out to the CSV file and displayed in the window of
digitized values now use a format that shows more precision for both very large
and very small numbers.
* Fixed a bug that prevented exporting a calibration for more than one plot per
session.
* Fixed a bug that prevented editing of values in the table of digitized values
under some circumstances.
* Fixed display and editing bugs related to the use of logarithmic axis scales.

Version: 2.6.2 17-DEC-2012

* Corrected a bug that could cause File/Open… to fail under certain
circumstances. This problem still exists on Unbuntu Linux and I can't fix it.

Version: 2.6.1 03-NOV-2012

* Fixed a bug that prevented the file open dialog from working properly on all
platforms.

Version: 2.6.0 13-OCT-2012

* Fairly major upgrade to Plot Digitizer adding some features that have been
requested for over 8 years now. Thanks to contributor Scott Steinhorst for
making this possible!
* Added a zoom capability allowing the user to zoom in and out on an image
being digitized.
* Added an optional grid display to the scaled axes.
* Calibration data can now be exported to a file so you do not have to
recalibrate to return to digitizing an image later.
* Previously digitized points saved to a CSV file can now be re-imported to a
calibrated image.
* Added ability to change the plot symbol, size and color as a preference.
* Improved robustness for running autotrace.
* Fixed a bug that prevented the Preferences item from appearing on recent
MacOS X systems.
* Corrected a bug with the number of fraction digits written to the CSV output
file.

Version: 2.5.1 08-JUL-2011

* Fixed a bug that prevented opening of files when all windows were closed on
MacOS X. Also updated code to Java 1.5 standard.
* Corrected errors with numbers being rounded off when they should not have
been.
* Corrected the on-screen X,Y display number formatting to be more general.
* Fixed a bug where the on-screen X,Y display was not displaying logarithmic
data correctly.
* The bitmap image is now converted to black & white before being output to
autotrace. This greatly improves the reliability of autotrace.

Version: 2.5.0 05-JUN-2010

* The autotrace program no longer ships with Plot Digitizer and must now be
installed separately. Most users didn't use it and it was a pain to maintain
autotrace in the distribution for the few people who used it. If Plot
Digitizer can not find autotrace, the semi-auto button is disabled.
* Eliminated the use of the installer on Windows and Linux. It was fragile and
the primary source of problems for users. The Windows platform now ships as a
native Windows executable and the Linux version ships as a simple
double-clickable JAR file (which will actually work on ALL platforms).
* Modified to use an ant based build system.
* Modified code-base to make use of features found in Java 1.5 and to generally
clean it up.
* Picked up latest versions of underlying libraries.

Version: 2.4.1 15-OCT-2005

* Fixed a bug with computing polygon areas.

Version: 2.4.0 15-JAN-2005

* Added immediate mouse position feedback display.
* Added "shift+drag" method for rapidly digitizing many points.

Version: 2.3.1 01-OCT-2004

* Fixed a bug that caused Y-axes with logarithmic scales to not be digitized
properly.

Version: 2.3.0 04-SEP-2004

* Fixed a bug that prevented the auto-digitizing feature from working in some
non-US locales.
* Added the ability to compute the length of a digitized curve and the area of
a digitized polygon.
* Added the ability to optionally use the x-axis calibration for the the y-axis
as well.
* The output CSV file will now always output the numbers in scientific notation
to retain the maximum number of significant digits.
* The tabular view of the digitized points will now use scientific notation if
any of the numbers are small.

Version: 2.2.1 04-JUL-2004

* Fixed a bug that prevented the user from being able to select PNG files on
certain platforms.
* Recompiled the Linux version of the autotrace program so that it would not
require the imageMagick libraries to be present.
* Modified the About Box to use an external text file for it's content.

Version: 2.2.0 19-JUN-2004

* Added the ability to digitize data from plots with logarithmic axis scales
(either on the ordinate, or the abscissa or both).
* Switched to a new version of the installer that will now work with Windows XP.
* Picked up a new version of the library that writes the CSV format data files
output from Plot Digitizer.
* Removed the last Mac specific source file from this program (I had forgotten
about it before).

Version: 2.1.0 20-MAY-2004

* Added user preferences for setting the color of lines, symbols, etc. The
preferences also introduce a new feature (turned off by default) to output the
untransformed pixels of each of the selected points in addition to the
transformed coordinates.
* Started using a new library that improves MacOS X integration. As a
side-effect, the application on any platform can now have multiple digitization
sessions (windows) open at a time and there is a "Windows" menu that can be
used to navigate between all open windows.

Version: 2.0.0 21-JAN-2004

Major rewrite of Plot Digitizer from top to bottom. Major new feature:
semi-automatic plot digitizing using "autotrace". Also added unlimited
undo/redo functionality, the ability to insert points between two that have
already been digitized, the ability to delete points (by right-clicking on the
point), and the ability to move already digitized points by dragging them.

Version: 1.4.0 27-JUN-2003

Fixed minor display bugs. Added the ability to recalibrate the Y axis while
keeping the existing X axis calibration. Saves a lot of time when you have
multiple plots that share the same X axis.

Version: 1.3.1 10-NOV-2002

Fixed a bug that caused an incompatibility with Java 1.4 or later.

Version: 1.3.0 22-AUG-2002

There used to be a limit of 100 data points that could be digitized at a time.
That limit has been removed. You can now digitize as many data points as your
heart desires.
Made it possible to copy the contents of the table window (the table showing
the numbers resulting from digitizing) to the clipboard in a tab-delimited
format that works well for pasting into Excel or any other spreadsheet like
program. Now you don't have to save the results to a file and then load them
into Excel as a separate step.

27-JUN-2002
Fixed a major bug in the transformation of the coordinates from screen
coordinates to plot coordinates. The bug would show up when trying to digitize
plots with significant rotation angles.
Dropped support for MacOS 8/9.

23-NOV-2001
Added support for MacOS X application bundles. Program now remembers location
of last plot opened during a session.
14-JUN-2001
Fixed a bug with working on plots that are rotated.

7-JUN-2001
Fixed bug that made app MacOS specific. Added ability to edit numbers in table
window.

3-JUN-2001
Original release of my Plot Digitizer application.

Legal Notice:
Plot Digitizer is a program for digitizing data from scanned plots.
Copyright (C) 2000-2014 Joseph A. Huwaldt

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA. Or visit the Free Software
Foundation's web site:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

The source code for this program is available for download here:
http://plotdigitizer.sourceforge.net/

Feel free to contact me if you have any problems or questions about this
program.

Ad astra,

Joseph A. Huwaldt
jhuwaldt@users.sourceforge.net