On Friday 18 May 2007, Christian Lange wrote:
I am using "your" Athena and so on-software package for the evaluation of my XAS-measurements. So far everything is working fine, but i have one problem. The plots of this "graphics window" are a bit inconvenient if it comes to a publication, because I cannot change line styles, colors and so on. Or at least I don't know how to do this.
That's why I want to ask you, whether it is possible to get the data for the fourier transform plots in some sort of ASCII-format to import it in Origin. Maybe with some file jiggling at the DOS prompt level?
Hi Christian, This is a good question for the Ifeffit mailing list, so I am taking the liberty of CCing my answer there. This should be answered in the FAQ -- it certainly is frequently asked in my email! I completely agree that the plots made by pgplot are not pretty enough for publication and I suspect that Matt would not argue either. We use pgplot because it works well within the context of Ifeffit, because it is free and redistributable, and because it works equivalently on Windows, Unix, and the Mac. Matt and I both prefer to spend our limited time making good XAS software -- neither of us really felt particularly inclined to make and maintain publication quality plotting software. There are, after all, plenty of excellent packages out there for making beautiful plots. The trick, then, is the link between Athena and your favorite plotting package. In the File menu, there are a number of option for exporting data into plain-text, column-data files. These can then be imported easily into your favorite plotting program. The File menu options from "Save mu(E)" through "Save chi(q)" will save the current data group (i.e. the one highlighted in the groups list and the one whose parameters are currently on display in the main window). The mu(E) file, for instance, contains columns for energy data, background, I0, pre-edge line, and post-edge polynomial. You can import these columns into your favorite plotting program and have your way with them. The chi(R) file, as another example, has columns of R, real part, imaginary part, magnitude, phase, and back-transform window in R. Below those options is a submenu labeled "Save marked groups as data". The idea there is to save column data file where each column contains the data from a marked group (i.e. the ones with the little purple button in the groups list clicked). There are options for saving data in this way in each of the plotting spaces. Finally, it is possible to have some control over how the plots are made. In the Settings menu, select "Edit preferences". Then open up the Plot branch by clicking on its little plus sign. The options c0 through c9 and the linetypes option might be of interest to your. Nothing among the preferences will magically make pgplot prettier, but it may help you visualize your data. HTH, B P.S. You can join the Ifeffit mailing list at http://cars9.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ifeffit/ It tends to be high quality conversation (except the parts written by me, of course) and high signal-to-noise. -- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advanced Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007 Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793 My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/