Need a graph --> digital converter

GlueGuy · Feb 1, 2002

You know how you can take an Excel spreadsheet and generate a graph of the data? Well, I am looking for something that will do the reverse.

I have a 20-year plot of high/low temperatures in our area. The fellow that did it, manually graphed the whole 20 years! This is a one-time deal (so I don't want to buy an expensive program). The data are approximately 14,000 data points (on one sheet of paper no less!)...

Chuck52 · Feb 1, 2002

Glueguy,

One of the faculty here <font color=red>had</font color=red> a program called UNSCANIT for the Mac years ago, which would let you read the numbers from a scanned image of the plot. He doesn't know if he has it anymore, or if it would work on a newer Mac, but at least there is/was something available that would do the job. Hope springs eternal. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

Chuck

Chuck52 · Feb 1, 2002

Demo version of UN-SCN-IT:

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.sciencesoftware.com/>http://www.sciencesoftware.com/</A>

Chuck

GlueGuy · Feb 1, 2002

This looks perfect! Thanks Chuck! I'll let you know how it works.

BTW - I figured I could "get by" with maybe 5 years worth of the data, but bagged it after it took me an hour just to do 3 months! This may make it possible to convert the whole graph.

mikim · Feb 1, 2002

you could try ncdc too --- National Climatic Data Center -- they sell the data, not give it away, - but they have sample pages you can look at and they don't charge much -- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html>http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html</A> just a thought -
They use the data supplied by NWS from observations taken at particular spots - most usually from airports - but not always - besides the weather office sites we also have what they call co-op observers that are scattered all over and these volunteers take weather obs throughout the day - everyday - and call it in. temp, rain, etc - stuff that's easy and doesn't take sophisticated equipment to do. NCDC has records going back over 100 years.
mike

GlueGuy · Feb 1, 2002

I knew about that data. However, the problem is that that stuff is all from down in the valley; and we are in a radically different micro-climate. The data I got from this guy is very local. Not exactly the same as our place, but only a mile away. So it is likely to be the most accurate I will be able to find.

GlueGuy · Feb 2, 2002

I downloaded the demo. It looks like it will do the job, but the demo version is crippled, and will only convert the two sample graphs that they supply with it (won't work on my data; says that it's not allowed).

So I emailed them to ask for the price (they don't list price information on their web site). They came back with $325 + $10 shipping /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

I can't afford that one, no matter how good it is. This is a one-time deal; I've got 46 pages of data, and I figure it would still take many hours to convert, even with this program.

Chuck52 · Feb 3, 2002

Glueguy,

Sure are proud of their stuff, aren't they? That kind of software is popular with academics because data can lie around for years (decades) before it finally gets published sometimes. I'll ask around and see what I can find. Academic types are also cheap....some poor prof who couldn't afford the commercial stuff may have written his own and distributed it freely. Sometimes these things work better than the pay-for-play too. Seems like there should be something available.

Chuck

GlueGuy · Feb 3, 2002

Chuck,

Yeah, it sure looks like they're proud. Probably not a high-volume product, so that kind of price may be justified. I did poke around and found another product called "Grab-It" that does much the same thing, but is more manual. The good news is that it's only $60. The problem is that you have to trace out the plot line you want to follow, so it doesn't really solve the labor part of the problem.

Maybe I can find someone that owns the program, and just borrow their computer for a day....

Chuck52 · Feb 3, 2002

How about this shareware:

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.32bit.com/software/listings/Education/Science/_20P/24109/>http://www.32bit.com/software/listings/Education/Science/_20P/24109/</A>

Chuck