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Save As command (File menu)

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Saves either the entire plot, or a single curve's data, depending on the format chosen.

Note:

1)To save a DPlot file with its existing name, format, and location, use the Save command.
2)If one of the file formats described below does not appear in the "Save as type" box, it is simply because that file format is inapplicable for the current graph. For example you cannot save 3D views of 3D or 4D data as a metafile (simply because the file would be enormous).

DPlot file

Saves all data in addition to the title, axis labels, legend, and other formatting information.

Compressed DPlot file

Identical to the above, but compressed using the ZLIB algorithm. As such the file is not human-readable and may not be edited or read in a text editor (or by WinZip® or similar archive utilities). In general files compressed using this method will have a compression ratio from 2.5:1 to 4:1. Larger files may achieve 12:1 or higher, and extreme cases with long runs of identical values might achieve 400:1, though this is rare. The compression is lossless; all information will remain intact. Compressed DPlot files may be opened with DPlot or DPlot Viewer, versions 2.2 or later.

ASCII file (1 curve only)

Saves one curve to a file with the following form:

nPoints

x(1)  y(1)

x(2)  y(2)

   .

   .

x(nPoints)  y(nPoints)

If you use a filename extension of .csv, the columns will be comma-separated. Otherwise the columns will be tab-separated.

Comma-separated values

For 2D plots, saves all curves to a file with the following form:

"Title Line 1"

"Title Line 2"

"Title Line 3"

"Title Line 4"

"X Axis Label","Legend 1","Legend 2",...,"Legend N"

x(1),y(1,1),y(2,1),...,y(N,1)

x(2),y(1,2),y(2,2),...,y(N,2)

   .

   .

x(M),y(1,M),y(2,M),...y(N,M)

 

where N is the number of curves and M is the number of points per curve.

For XY plots this option is only available if either 1) all curves share the same X values and all curves have the same number of data points or 2) all curves are sorted in increasing X order. In the latter case blank entries (two successive commas) will be written for any curve that does not have a data point at the X for the line being written.

The title lines are written to the file only if present.

If the plot consists of one curve only, then the column label line is written as:

"X Axis Label","Y Axis Label"

or

"X Axis Label","Legend 1"

if no Y axis label is present.

For the first column, if no X axis label is present then DPlot will use "Time" for Time of day number format, "Date" for Calendar Date, "Date/Time" for Date and Time, or "" for other formats.

This file format may be opened directly in Microsoft Excel and opened in DPlot as file type D, "Multiple columns". You may also drag these files from Explorer onto the DPlot window to open them.

For 3D plots, saves all points to a file in this form:

"Title Line 1"

"Title Line 2"

"Title Line 3"

"Title Line 4"

"X Axis Label","Y Axis Label","Z Axis Label"

x(1),y(1),z(1)

x(2),y(2),z(2)

   .

   .

x(N),y(N),z(N)

For 3D/4D scatter plots with multiple data sets, each set will be written sequentially and separated by a blank line.

This file format may be opened directly in Microsoft Excel and opened in DPlot as file type K, "Random 3D points".

Tab-separated values

Identical in all respects to comma-separated values, except that the data columns are separated by tab characters rather than commas. As with CSV files, this file format may be opened directly in Microsoft Excel (after answering prompts concerning the delimiter) and opened in DPlot as file type D, "Multiple columns" for XY plots or file type K, "Random 3D points" for 3D data.

Unformatted binary (32-bit)

Saves the data for all curves as a series of 1024-byte records. Unformatted data files are generally much smaller than their equivalent ASCII files, and read/write operations are generally an order of magnitude faster. DPlot writes the file as a series of 1024-byte records, with the 1st record containing only the number of data points (4 byte integers) for each curve, and subsequent records consisting of 128 x,y pairs each (with possibly fewer than 128 pairs in the last record for each curve). The data for all curves starts on a 1024-byte boundary.

Note that this method will always produce a file size of at least 1024*(1+number of curves), regardless of how small the original data set is.

Files saved by DPlot using this format will always fill the first 1024-byte record with 0s following the number of points for each curve, which should assist programmers in quickly determining how many curves are present in the file.

Unformatted binary (64-bit)

Identical to the above, but data is saved as 8-byte (64-bit) values.

Saves the data for all curves as a series of 1024-byte records. Unformatted data files are generally much smaller than their equivalent ASCII files, and read/write operations are generally an order of magnitude faster. DPlot writes the file as a series of 1024-byte records, with the 1st record containing only the number of data points (4 byte integers) for each curve, and subsequent records consisting of 64 x,y pairs each (with possibly fewer than 64 pairs in the last record for each curve). The data for all curves starts on a 1024-byte boundary.

Note that this method will always produce a file size of at least 1024*(1+number of curves), regardless of how small the original data set is.

Files saved by DPlot using this format will always fill the first 1024-byte record with 0s following the number of points for each curve, which should assist programmers in quickly determining how many curves are present in the file.

Windows Metafile

Saves the entire plot in the Windows placeable metafile format. Placeable metafiles may be imported into a number of word processors and spreadsheet applications, or may be converted to another file format by many popular graphics conversion programs. If the "Set Plot Size" checkbox on the Extents/Intervals /Size dialog box is in effect, the plot will be sized such that the box bounding the plot has the dimensions specified by that command. Otherwise the dimensions for the entire metafile will match those specified with the Copy Dimensions command.

DPlot will not read a metafile.

DPlot will not save a metafile of a 3D view or a 2D view of a surface plot with the "Type" set to "Shaded bands" or "Both lines and shades".

Enhanced Metafile

Saves the entire plot in the enhanced metafile format. Enhanced metafiles may be imported into a number of word processors and spreadsheet applications, or may be converted to another file format by many popular graphics conversion programs. Enhanced metafiles contain scaling information not found in Windows metafiles, and may not exhibit some of the problems in other applications (e.g. MS PowerPoint) that are present with placeable metafiles. The enhanced format is generally superior to the placeable metafile format.

DPlot sizes the enhanced metafile as described above under Windows Metafile.

DPlot will not read an enhanced metafile.

DPlot will not save an enhanced metafile of a 3D view or a 2D view of a surface plot with the "Type" set to "Shaded bands" or "Both lines and shades".

Bitmap images

These file formats may or may not appear on this dialog, depending on whether you have installed the corresponding plugins. After selecting one of these formats you will be presented with the Image Properties window, in which you can control the size, bit depth, and several other settings.

BMP Picture

Saves plots to 8-bit uncompressed, 8-bit run-length-encoded (RLE), or 24-bit uncompressed bitmaps. The 8-bit RLE format is generally suitable for most DPlot graphs and produces considerably smaller files than the other BMP options. However not all applications will support RLE bitmaps. 24-bit uncompressed files will be much larger than any of the other image formats but might be useful when, for example, using DPlot-produced bitmaps as frames in a movie.

Graphics Interchange Format

The image is limited to 256 colors. LZW compression is used. For XY plots this is generally not a limitation, but may result in loss of detail in 3D images with many colors.

JPEG Picture

Saves a JPEG image. For quality settings other than "Lossless", the quality generally isn't good relative to lossless formats (BMP, PNG, TIFF).

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

The best option for saving bitmap images if your target application supports the format. PNG images are lossless and images of DPlot graphs will generally compress to a smaller size than any other format.

Tagged Image File Format (TIF)

The TIFF plugin uses LZW compression on all images. This generally results in compression better than JPEG (particularly for 8-bit images) without losing information.

For all image exports, if the width or height values are set to 0 and the resolution is set to 100 or less dpi, the saved image will essentially be a screenshot. If greater than 100 then font sizes, line widths, the plot size and other dimensions as seen on the display will be scaled up by resolution/(100 dpi), so that the saved image will have the same proportions as the graph shown on your display. For best results with a resolution setting greater than 100, always specify the plot size with the Extents/Intervals/Size menu command (or via macro with the Size command). Otherwise you risk generating an Insufficient memory error for high resolution settings.

If you are saving to an 8-bit color depth and your image has a colored background, you will generally get superior results if you check the Improved color quantization box. For large images (large in this case defined as wider than 3500 pixels), the improved quantization method will be used regardless of your selection here, primarily because the default method performs poorly with large images.

NOTE: For images with many unique colors and/or antialiased lines and symbols and for 3D views of 3D/4D data in which one of the light source models is used, you will get better results saving the image as 24- rather than 8-bits. If file size is paramount you can then use a dedicated image editor like Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to reduce the color depth, with better results than you will get by saving to an 8-bit image in DPlot.

WAV Audio

Support for WAV export is included in the licensed version of DPlot only, and will only appear on the Save As dialog if you elected to install this module at installation-time.

Saves one curve to a monotone wave file or two curves to a stereo wave file. For stereo files, the first curve is saved to the left channel; the second curve is saved to the right channel. Amplitudes are assumed to range from -1.0 to 1.0; values outside that range are clipped. The Windows Sound Recorder application can play files saved using this option.

 

Related macro commands

FileSaveAs

SetFilename

SetImageCrop

SetPluginImageDims

 

 

 


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