xyscan is a tool for scientist in the need to extract data points, i.e. numeric values, from a plot. It allows to scan the plots and extract data points including the size of the error bars (both in x and y). It can handle plots with linear and logarithmic scales. In fact xyscan can be used for extracting numeric values from any kind of 2D technical drawings. Click here for a screen shot of xyscan in action.
Latest News:
Version 3.2 is ready (July 2009). This version has a completely revised scan engine. Starting with this version xyscan does not handle the scan of tilted plots any more (no panic, read on). It assumes perfectly aligned plots (i.e., not tilted w.r.t. the vertical or horizontal). Scanning tilted plots required precisely aligned markers (in x and y each) making the scanning of perfectly aligned plots (99% of all cases) more cumbersome. Instead, xyscan now allows to rotate a plot before the scan should that be necessary. To do so use the spin box in the Axis panel (next to the log buttons). Use the crosshair to check for horizontal and/or vertical alignment. Due to this change, setting the markers is now much simpler. Instead of setting the markers exactly on the axis (which was necessary to determine the tilt) all one needs is to define the exact x (y) position for x (y) markers. The other coordinate is not relevant any more. The old square markers were replaced by gray lines. A bug in the error handling was fixed (error handling method (mean/average/asymmetric) on x was applied on the y value and vice versa). Few improvements in the GUI and some minor bugs got fixed. Documentation was brought up to date.
Downloads
New (Recommended) Version 3.2.1 (July 2009)
Windows
Sorry, no binary available yet, use source below until I find the time to create one.
Mac OS X (Universal)
Requires Mac OS 10.5.5 (Leopard) or higher. Tiger (10.4) users please use version 3.0.1.
Linux/X11
Build it from the source below - takes a minute if you have Qt installed.
Source
Zipped tar file with all files needed to build xyscan on all available platforms. Requires Qt4.5 or higher (at least 4.5.2 is recommended). See README file for details. To download the LGPL/free Qt version go here (note that many Linux distributions already come with Qt).
Version 3.1.0 (Dec 2008)
Binaries
Windows, Mac OS X (Universal) (Leopard only).
Source
Tar ball, to build this version Qt4.3 or higher is required.
Version 3.0.1 (July 2007)
Binaries
Windows, Mac OS X (Universal) (Tiger)
Source
Tar ball (zipped tar file) - requires Qt4.3 or higher
Version 2.0.9 (September 2006)
Binaries
Windows, Mac OS X (PPC) (Tiger)
Source
Tar ball (zipped tar file) - requires Qt3.
 Supported Platforms

xyscan is supported currently on Windows XP/Vista, MAC OS X , and Red Hat Linux/Fedora/Scientific Linux (or similar) meaning I am trying hard make sure that the application can be build w/o hiccups and does run flawless on these three platforms. It will most certainly run on different Linux flavors and Windows versions but I have no time to support any other platform than the ones listed above. I am very grateful that others stepped in and there is now a distributions available for Gentoo. See also the pages at the Fink web site. Many thanks to all that helped maintaining and distributing it.

Legal Notes

xyscan 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 3 of the License, or 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.
Copyright 2002-2009 Thomas S. Ullrich

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Seth Vidal from Duke University who helped me building the first rpm for Linux (xyscan version 2) and who introduced me to the world of licensing and GPL. Many thanks to Valeri Fine who came up with the double-click improvement in 3.1.0. I am very grateful to Benjamin Bannier who made the Gentoo port possible.

 

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