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19th March 2009, 07:48 AM
Thanks Chert I will try out QGIS......
![[Image: 3334488270_7156e71b8b_t.jpg]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3405/3334488270_7156e71b8b_t.jpg)
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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19th March 2009, 10:03 AM
The open source Spanish one is called gvSIG (snappy name), with input and funding from across the EU. It is aparrently more fully featured that QGIS, though some of the differences are discussed here
http://thehumanjourney.net/index.php?opt...Itemid=207
I'm tryign to persuade work to move to opensource, rather than have so much of our capacity being dictated by how much the software licenses cost....
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19th March 2009, 02:51 PM
ITs the ever present battle between what you would like, what you need and where you can find a corner without compromising too much
I got a copy of some of these but the computer wont load anything through the disc drive
txt is
Mike
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19th March 2009, 03:51 PM
Compromise? If only.....actually I have come up with a pragmatic short term solution that seems to please my sponsor. So once again thanks for everyones contribution.
I will report back if and when I sort out a more definite result.
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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19th March 2009, 08:30 PM
Aha, I've been fiddling with the same issue for the thesis. The quick and effective approach has already been outlined pretty much above.
Surfer is the easiest, X,Y coordinates with Z values being geochemistry values or whatever you want. Sigmaplot also does decent contour plots.
You then import/export the Surfer output into GIS as a raster based on the coordinates, overlaying your various 'contour maps' onto whatever you want, section drawing/photo/geology map etc.
For super tech, matlab handles gridded data very well but requires you programming some code, is expensive etc etc.
I'd be very interested in how you get on. I need to find useful methods for disseminating my findings and archiving my data with the ADS and this one looked promising.
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25th March 2009, 12:05 PM
possibly Global Mapper might be worth looking at.
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25th March 2009, 03:14 PM
One week on and I still haven't solved this problem......I can create maps showing the presence or absence of single elements. I can even use a 'predictor' programme to show the likely presence of the element in areas not sampled, but......I still can't conceive of a way to show multi-element presence, where that presence might indicate a particular 'signature' showing significant activity. So far I have tried ArcGIS, ArcView and Surfer....
Maybe I need to go back to the original problem and forget the maps for now.....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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25th March 2009, 05:18 PM
I think it needs a rethink...
Give us some sample data and what you want to do with it...
?When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.?
William Blake
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25th March 2009, 06:04 PM
I think it may be worth while stepping back and looking at the relationships in terms of colouring in the RGB triangle.
the only thing about this is that your only able to process up to 3 elements at a time.
the meaning and understanding is also easily lost, so you may find that an old school approach will work better than throwing technology at the problem.
There are just too many factors being brought to bear in one format.
what about a series of bar charts?
hows about a larger scale complexity and a finer resolution analysis on a few interesting areas, where the data is indicative of something.
kind of like spot dating particular feature types.
txt is
Mike
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26th March 2009, 12:15 PM
I think YellowPete is right on this one: Had you seen an example of this kind of mapping being done successfully elsewhere that gave you the idea to use it, or is this an idea you've come up with for displaying your data?
Instead of bar charts, you could use pie charts, there are also a variety of other ways of graphically displaying multivariate data, for example wind rose* diagrams or Chernoff faces**. These let the viewer visually pick out anomalous readings easily, but are less good for displaying (or detecting) subtle changes in your data.
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_rose (NB: can be used for more than just wind direction!)
**
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Human%20Engine...0Faces.htm
Multi element analysis and mapping
