Save As command

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.

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, "Comma-separated values" will not be present for XY plots that do not have the same number of points in each curve or have a different X interval.

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

Saves one curve to a file with the following form:

nPoints

x(1) y(1)

x(2) y(2)

x(nPoints) y(nPoints)

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"

"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 1) The current plot has only one curve, or 2) All curves share the same X values and all curves have the same number of data points.

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"

This file format may be opened directly in Microsoft Excel and opened in DPlot as file type D, "Multiple columns".

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

"Title Line 1"

"Title Line 2"

"Title Line 3"

"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)

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

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 0’s 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.

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.

Bitmap images

These file formats may or may not appear on this dialog, depending on whether you have installed the corresponding plugins.

All image file formats mentioned below make use of the excellent FreeImage DLL, a toolkit for developers interested in supporting a variety of image formats.

BMP Picture

Saves plots to 8-bit uncompressed, 8-bit run-length-encoded, or 24-bit uncompressed bitmaps. The 8-bit RLE format is generally suitable for all DPlot graphs and produces considerably smaller files than the other 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 "good" quality JPEG image, though the quality isn't actually all that 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 will be scaled up by resolution/(screen resolution), 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 a Size command or the Extents/Intervals/Size menu 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.

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.

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