[[!meta  title="Getting numbers from journal figures"]]
[[!meta  date="2008-09-06 00:20:30"]]
This morning I wrote up this quick and easy way to get actual numbers
out of graphs and whatnot that show up in journal articles.

    $ pdfimages article.pdf fig
    $ clickloc.tk fig-000.ppm > fig-000.pixels
    $ scale_click.sh 0 10 5 20 fig-000.pixels > fig-000.data

Just use your first four clicks in
[clickloc.tk](http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~wking/code/tcl-tk/clickloc.tk)
to mark out the x and y minimum and maximum values.  Then use
[scale_click.sh](http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~wking/code/bash/scale_click.sh)
to convert the pixel values to the units listed in the figure.  In my
example, the x axis ran from 0 to 10 units, and the y axis ran from 5
to 20 units.  Supports log-scaled axes too.

Having gotten some numbers, my sawtooth simulator matches up fairly
well to [Schlierf & Rief's
results](http://www.biophysj.org/cgi/content/abstract/90/4/L33) on
both models.  Hooray! ;).

[[!tag  linux]]
[[!tag  programming]]
[[!tag  theory]]