Grapher/Surfer Tips and Tricks

[Probe321]

Tested PfE update with Surfer 16 and it works.

[John Donovan]

Here's a tip for students who would like to utilize the Surfer (or Grapher), application off-line on their own computer, but can't afford the product.

Basically if you are a student you can get a 1 year license for Surfer (or Grapher) for $50 by following these directions:

Thank you for your email and request for information regarding our Student License program. For university students to purchase the $50 annual (per product) license we require the following:

    Email us at sales@goldensoftware.com from their university issued email account

    Send us a proof of enrollment that includes their name, the university's name, and the current enrollment period (including the year)

Once this information is received, we send them a coupon code for them to purchase their license through our web store. It is one-year license that will automatically expire one year after purchase.

However, now that CalcImage contains shape, polygon and profile extraction features as described here:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=1144.0

this Surfer license isn't as useful as it once might have been. On the other hand, if you are a "power scripter", then the Surfer (or Grapher) scripting capabilities might be useful, as they are quite powerful for automating extractions and other data post processing.

[Probeman]

A few colleagues and I are writing up a paper on quant mapping and we decided to utilize a color palette that is intuitive even when printed in B&W and also helpful for color blind users. This "fire color" palette was developed by Greg Dumond at U Mass Amherst working with Julien Allaz and Mike Jercinovic:



Attached below are the .CLR files for use with Golden Software's Surfer app and also a PhotoShop palette (.ACT file).

Edit by John: Probably should also reference the "No More Rainbows!" topic started by Anette von der Handt:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=1003.0

[John Donovan]

I recently demonstrated the Surfer mapping output from Probe for EPMA for a customer that did not purchase our Probe Image quantitative mapping software yet.

As some of you know, Probe for EPMA provides quantitative mapping output for grids of single points or even random single points for display of quantitative mapping information as shown here:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=943.0

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=60.0

However, we had not utilized this output feature for some time, and when I attempted to run the script for the customer in the latest Surfer version, it gave an error regarding the default color palette file. This error is now fixed in the latest Probe for EPMA version.

For those of you unfamiliar with this PFE output, it is performed using the Output | Output Standard and Unknown XY Plots menu and the dialog selections are as shown:



When this auto-generated script is run in the Surfer Scripter application, one of the many output types are as shown here:



Also this modified code now automatically handles the JEOL "anti-Cartesian" stage for recent Surfer versions supporting "reverse" X/Y axes orientations.

Yes, the acquisition of many points for this output type is slower than quantitative mapping in Probe Image and CalcImage, but one can obtain amazing sensitivity and with the MAN background acquisition, it goes faster than one would think.

Think of it as high sensitivity, low spatial resolution quantitative mapping...  and it just occurred to me, that because of the integrated EDS interfaces in Probe for EPMA (Thermo, Bruker and JEOL), one can also acquire gridded (or random) analysis points using WDS and EDS quantified together for subsequent mapping output.