Why STAPLOT

More Figures produced with Staplot

This is STAPLOT v3.2.0, released 99/06/29

Are your data geographically coded?

Do you find yourself frustrated by Matlab's inability to properly handle irregularly sampled (spaced) data?

Do you find yourself making thousands of property-property plots, trying to 'see' into a multi-dimensional space and keep track of your insights?

Do you work in polar regions?

If so, STAPLOT may be just that for which you look. ,-)

STAPLOT is freeware. It is a graphical user interface (GUI) built to run under Matlab (to learn more about Matlab, go here ). It is a simple, point-and-click interface (comparable to OceanAtlas, in some ways), designed to make during- and post-cruise data analysis a snap. Some handy features are:

  • 'Memory' of selected stations, allowing them to be color-coded by cruise, by location, by some property maximum or minimum, by any attribute you so desire.
  • Ability to add new, user-defined properties, at any time during a session. These can be saved and remembered from session to session.
  • Polar projections (thanks to Rich Pawlowicz) and 10-minute bathymetry/topography at 10m-10000m (based on etopo5) available from within Matlab.
  • Selection of stations can be done by any propery, or range thereof -- salinity minimum at depth, latitude greater than a certain value, you name it. And this is not through some laborious 'search', but just clicking and dragging with the mouse.
  • Extensive number of user options can be specified for each cruise, or dataset. These can be save in a 'session'. Sessions (and the relevant datasets) can be merged. And STAPLOT will keep track of the original cruises and legs for you.
  • Decent contouring of irregularly sampled data (again, thanks to Rich).
  • Automatic calculation of distance between selected stations (yet again ... Rich).

    Just try it. You'll like it.

    Simple instructions for getting STAPLOT

    First, make a directory or folder called STAPLOT .

    Next, go into that and make a directory/folder called BATHYMETRY .

    Click on the diskette below, or ftp directly using 'mget *'. Make sure you use 'binary' transfer mode!

    Check to make sure you got the isobath files (in the BATHYMETRY folder/subdirectory).

    Make sure these locations are in your Matlabpath. (Type ' help path' at the matlab prompt for ideas on how to do this.)

    cd to STAPLOT at the matlab prompt. Type ' staplot '.

    You can use your web browser to follow along a sample session (contained in staplot.htm ), or print out the text of same (in staplot.txt).

    Now, :-) Read the ' readme.1st ' file and do what it says to install STAPLOT properly.

    Get Staplot (individual files) (~13 Mb)

    or, for those handy with tar and gzip, staplot.tgz (~6.7Mb)

    The sea-mat site, where you can pick up, among a number of other useful items, the CSIRO Seawater package, a very handy companion to STAPLOT.