QScanPlot is inspired in the Shareware tool from Marisoft Digitizer. QScanPlot gets an scanned image of a figure (from a textbook, an article, ...), and let's you extract the data used to create the plot, by defining axes systems in the figure and curves of points. These points can be afterwards written (exported) to a simple ASCII file.
The resulting documents created with QScanPlot are written to disk in XML format.
QScanPlot can export the resulting, extracted data in a user-defined format (that includes customized separators of data values, comment markers, numeric format), in separated data pair sets or in a block data.
In addition, there are several pre-defined output formats (Octave, SCILab and GNUPlot).
For more information, please, have a look into the QScanPlot web page http://www.gae.ucm.es/~gonzalez/qscanplot.
QScanPlot is listed in the Open Directory Project website (you know, "Humans do it better"), under the category Computers: Software: Graphics: Optimization and Conversion.
QScanPlot uses the Qt Widget Library from TrollTech. If you want to know more about other Qt based applications, please check the page Free Software Based on Qt in the Troll's web site.
Please, read this.
2002-04-13
* Oh, my... it's already 5 months since I open this file...!!
Tsk, tsk, too bad... OK, anyway, there are some important changes,
so to the point:
* Export models are introduced. Instead of exporting the values
(x,y) of the selected data points in a curve, we might be
interested in some functions of these values, in general (f(x),
g(y)). Now four models can be used for each curve: a) (x,y); b)
(f(x),y); c) (x, g(y)); and d) (f(x), g(y)). In the models, f and
g are selected by the user from a set of functions compiled apart
in shared libraries, and loaded at run-time.
* Plugins are implemented. This complements the above point:
apart from the functions included to be used for the export
models, the user can create their own, which will be afterwards
compiled, with the help of a simple script, into a shared library,
to be loaded at run-time. The provided functions are already
implemented using this methodology.
Plugin functions can be created by editing a copy of the simple
template provided, myplugin.cpp, or from QScanPlot. See the
documentation for more information.
* Preferences are integrated into the system. I use a class called
Preferences, by David Johnson. It uses XML and DOM. The
preferences are saved in a file $HOME/.qscanplotrc
* Customization is introduced, with the help of the preferences.
The settings now available to the user are the background color,
the GUI style, the font, the initial zoom when importing an image,
the window size of the application, the appearance or not of the
splash window at the start-up, and the plugins directory.
* Again, some bugs were found when exporting data to files. Those
are solved. In addition, now the colors are stored in the common
#RRGGBB format
* Dialogs look now nicer (well, they should).
* Some more minor corrections in the code.
* Documentation improved, hopefully.
2001-11-04
* Once upon a time... OK, long after the release of the last beta,
the *NEW BETA* version, 0.3, is available for downloading. This
version does not mean a big step since the last one, but still you
should get it. A lit of bugs solved / features added follows:
* Bugs in Exporting data with some predefined formats are
solved. Some minor bugs are corrected, some more are missed, and
even some new are added!
* Dialogs now are more consistently built. There was a
misunderstanding of how to use layouts in Qt Designer. Now
everything goes smoother.
* Numeric formats: Finally the user defined numeric format for the
data to be exported does work.
* Preview of the data to be exported (in the selected format) is
implemented. The sequence can be: Export Setup - Export Preview -
Export.
* Documentation improved (I hope).
* Some new toolbar buttons. The menus have now a "TearOffHandle".
Never heard about that? OK, you'll see it.
2001-09-26
* Third BETA available. New version is 0.2, still in BETA phase.
Documentation a bit outdated.
* Grids are integrated in the system: the user can define grids in
the X axis (x_min, x_max and number of intervals or interval
width). At export time, the user can select a grid as the base for
the X values.
* Included Selection of Interpolator for exporting data. Still
some problems can appear, but a basic framework has been
established.
2001-09-12
* Problem found: when one opens "Edit Axes/Curves" dialog, exits
with "Cancel", and then try it again, the program crashes. I dunno
what the hell happens here, so I removed this possibility, i.e.,
when you press double click in an entry in this dialog (and a
second dialog opens), you will actually edit the objet (unless you
press in this second dialog the "Cancel" button, which DOES work).
* Solved problem with "Options|Sort points". The problem was that
once you export some curves and this is ON, the points remain
sorted. Now a copy of the list of points is sorted, and then
destroyed, in the Export routine.
2001-09-06
* Second BETA available. New/close document already
operative. Some minor bugs in distribution were corrected.
2001-09-03
* First BETA version almost ready. Still, handling of new
documents, closing of documents and the like is not working. Also,
there's no way to delete Axes Systems, Curves or even points,
although they can be moved in the image or edited (in the case of
axis points).