CHART : a computer plotting package for the display of position-dependent marine data

Abstract

Computer program CHART produces plots of navigation tracks and data points in a choice of 14 projections where navigation coordinates are defined. It was written specifically for the plotting and annotation of geological and geophysical data; however, any data which includes geographical coordinates can be plotted. The package was designed for broad flexibility of applications and for ease of use. Parameters are entered interactively; the user responds to online prompts worded in plain English. Several levels of default choices are incorporated; a user who takes all defaults can produce a plot by entering only the data source and format, and plot bounds . CHART can be used on any Digital Equipment Corporation VAX machine running VMS. It uses plotting subroutines <MAPPACK) maintained by the WHOI Information Processing & Communications Laboratory <IPCL) to draw projection grids and coastlines, and to locate the position for each data point. The program creates a file of Calcomp plotting instructions for subsequent plotting. Some additional features of CHART: coastlines, multiple data sets on one grid; empty grid without data points; corner registration marks; calculation of plot size; user-defined input format; online entry of data points where large time gaps occur; online documentation.