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Published March 26, 2003 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

PetroPlot: A plotting and data management tool set for Microsoft Excel

Abstract

PetroPlot is a 4000-line software code written in Visual Basic for the spreadsheet program Excel that automates plotting and data management tasks for large amount of data. The major plotting functions include: automation of large numbers of multiseries XY plots; normalized diagrams (e.g., spider diagrams); replotting of any complex formatted diagram with multiple series for any other axis parameters; addition of customized labels for individual data points; and labeling flexible log scale axes. Other functions include: assignment of groups for samples based on multiple customized criteria; removal of nonnumeric values; calculation of averages/standard deviations; calculation of correlation matrices; deletion of nonconsecutive rows; and compilation of multiple rows of data for a single sample to single rows appropriate for plotting. A cubic spline function permits curve fitting to complex time series, and comparison of data to the fits. For users of Excel, PetroPlot increases efficiency of data manipulation and visualization by orders of magnitude and allows exploration of large data sets that would not be possible making plots individually. The source codes are open to all users.

Additional Information

Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union. Received: 14 August 2004; Revised: 4 January 2005; Accepted: 5 January 2005; Published: 15 February 2005. Colleagues in the LDEO petrology group have been loyal beta-testers for PetroPlot. Numerous feedback and suggestions from them have substantially improved the program. Comments from Dennis Geist, Bill White, Yaoling Niu, Peter Michael, and David Christie have greatly improved both functions and documentation of this software, and lead to the creation of the tutorial. Auxiliary material for this article contains PetroPlot source files as well as a detailed tutorial explaining how to install the PetroPlot package and how to use the PetroPlot package for plotting and manipulation of geochemical data in the Microsoft Excel environment. Additional file information is provided in the README.txt. Available at: http://www.agu.org/journals/gc/gc0303/2002GC000323/supplement.shtml

Attached Files

Published - SUYggg03.pdf

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_PetroPlot.xla

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_PetroPlotExampleData.xls

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_PetroPlotSpider.xls

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_PetroPlot_Tutorial.pdf

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_Spline_example.xls

Supplemental Material - 2002GC000323_readme.txt

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 13, 2023