Manually Digitize Scanned Chart

This GUI helps you manually convert a scanned chart(image file) to a MALTAB data file and figure.
1.3K Downloads
Updated 11 Jun 2010

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This is the GUI I wrote in 2004 for my research work at graduate school using MATLAB GUIDE.

My puzzle at that time: there are many research work published on papers, but it's rather hard to get the original data in electronic format. All you can do is to scan the charts and manually measure the data from the chart.

That made my research work rather slow. So I came to MATLAB for help, and this one is still working with R2010a release.

Try it if you get the same problems as I did.
1. start the GUI
2. load one image(you may use the attached one)
3. set the original point of x-y axis
4. set x-axis limit on chart, specify x-axis range(read from the chart)
5. do the same thing for y-axis
6. start to mark the points on your image one by one(This is rather tedious process, but you have the option to cancel the previous mark if you want)
7. specify the file name and click on "Generate" button

The attached .jpg file is not from any publications to avoid copy-right problem.

You may also improve it by using Image Processing Toolbox to automatically convert the chart to electronic data. But it might be tricky because of the unexpected dots, shadows and notes from the scanned image.

Cite As

Xin Zhao (2024). Manually Digitize Scanned Chart (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/27884-manually-digitize-scanned-chart), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2010a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
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Version Published Release Notes
1.0.0.0