Stereonet 11 | Rick Allmendinger's Stuff (2024)

Stereonet 11 is a huge release with a completely new and robust internal data structure and an openGL 3D view of the lower hemisphere for teaching purposes. It includes almost all of the goodness of Stereonet 10 and lots of subtle new tweaks as well (check out the detialed version history, below). This version of Stereonet is compatible with all modern operating systems and has a modern user interface which has been modeled after OSXStereonet for Mac by Nestor Cardozo and me. It can read and write older Stereonet text files, can read the Stereonet 11 binary files, but saves its data in a new binary format.

For those hardy souls using Linux, you too can download a copy of Stereonet 11, though I have never seen it run on a Linux box and don't know if there are any compatibility issues!

For long term viability of your data, however, you should still export any work as text files which will always be readable by a large number of programs.

A comprehensive manual is included with the zip archive. For Mac Users still on Mac OS X 10.5 and lower (Leopard, Tiger, etc.), you can download a Carbon version of Stereonet. Note that this version will not be kept up to date with the above Cocoa version.

Version History

Versions 11.3.0, 11.3.1 — 2020.12.01

Stereonet can now label the outer edge of the primitive with Cardinal coordinates and azimuths at 30° intervals. The first time you run Stereonet v. 11.3, it will show these labels and ask whether you want to make them the defaults. After that, new windows will always open with your preference. You can turn on labels for any individual plot in the Stereonet Tab of the Inspector Palette. You can also change the defualt behavior by turning on or off labels in the Inspector, and then in Preferences check "Set to current settings in Inspector” and click Okay.
v. 11.3.1 the binary file now saves the stereonet labels preferences for individual datasets.
v. 11.3.1 The great circle paths are now drawn with rounded end caps
Fixed — Stereonet will not longer crash if you do not make any entries one of the text fields of the Rotation dialog box.

Versions 11.2.1, 11.2.2 — 2020.09.29

StraboSpot user names are forced to be lowercase so they will always work, regardless of how you type them in (the StraboSpot database only uses lowercase names). Passwords are always case-sensitive (as they should be!).
Fixed a bug when entering alternating ad hoc line and planes with the mouse (thanks, Tayna).
Fixes a stupid bug where the program would throw an error while reading preferences on start up if the user had not previously entered a Geologist’s Name in Preferences. This is now fixed (thanks, Marlina and Scott).

Version 11.2.0 — 2020.09.25

StraboSpot Download — You can now download any StraboSpot dataset which has orientations in it from your StraboSpot account. Select File>StraboSpot>Download and a popupmenu with all your projects will be populated. Select a project and the datasets popup menu will be populated. Select the dataset that you want and click the Download button. When the dataset has been downloaded, the dialog will disappear automatically and your dataset will be plotted.
A new entry under preferences allows you to save the email address that you use for your StraboSpot login so that you only need entry you password, which only needs to be entered once per session.
The usual bug fixes.

Versions 11.1.1, 11.1.2, 11.1.3 — 2020.08.15

Fixed a bug triggered by trying to save an SVG file when the stereonet grid was turned off (thanks, Stéphane).
Fixed a bug that was triggered when the Inspector was visible and the user switched data sets by clicking in the data sets panel rather than using the popup menu in the Inspector.
Fixed a bug related to unfolding of planes (¡Gracias, Dilan!)
Fixed a bug related to exporting SVG plots of rose diagrams based on trends of lines (Thanks, Derek!)
SVG output of rose diagrams now will display the mean vector and error envelop if the vector is shown in the plot.
Minor fine tuning

Versions 11.1.0 — 2020.07.23

Fixed a bug in the axial plane finder that affected users on non-U.S. localized systems (thanks, Claudio).
Better and more consistent internationalization throughout the program.

Versions 11.0.9 — 2020.06.05

Fixed a bug that prevented lines data entry in “PT” format (thanks, Alex).

Versions 11.0.8 — 2020.05.27

Mean vector arrow for rose diagrams has returned with a wedge of uncertainty as well.
Fixed a rotation bug affecting plane rotations (thanks, Paul)
Enabled rotations of small circles and arcs
Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when text annotations were dragged outside the plot more than 1.5 radii from the center of the diagram (thanks, Sarah).
The users manual now has a detailed privacy statement describing what information is sent to online service providers (for elevations, satellite images, and StraboSpot)

Versions 11.0.7 — 2020.05.24

NEW — Set the margins of the plot in the Stereonet tab of the Inspector. This will enable you to make text annotations outside of the plot, especially on the W and N sides.
Labels should now show up in SVG graphics
couple of bug fixes

Versions 11.0.5 — 2020.05.17

SVG graphical output back by popular demand (all two of you!)
Move robust localization. That’s right, if you live in a country that uses a comma for the decimal point, you will see commas in the list boxes, datum details, etc.
Improved version tracking.
A few bug fixes.

Versions 11.0.2, 11.0.3 — 2020.05.14

New, modern, internal data structure
3D view can be grabbed and rotated with the mouse to help students visualize the lower hemisphere. With the mouse scroll wheel, you can even fly through the model! 3D view colors and plot elements are user configurable
Drag data sets to change the order of plotting of individual data sets.
New menu commands: Data➤Merge With and Data➤New Dataset from Selection
Label individual observations (in addition to text annotations)
Revamped axial plane finder (no more acute and obtuse angle confusion!)
Change data formats with new dropdown menu in the Datasets Listbox
Open Recent submenu in the File Menu gives you rapid access to the last ten files you have opened.
UNDO (finally!)!! You can now use Edit➤Undo Delete if you change your mind about having deleted a dataset or a group of individual data points. You can only undo the most recent deletion and Undo does not work on plot changes (because you can already undo those by changing your Plot Menu selections) or operations (because Operations now always create new datasets rather than replacing existing data sets).
Inspector Palette now opens automatically to the Datasets Tab and selected dataset if there is a selected dataset. Otherwise it opens to the Stereonet Tab.
Option to dynamically change point size with changes in window size.
Option to use Aki-Richards format for lines on planes (i.e., rake)
Completely rewritten users manual (which I’m sure you’ll want to read carefully ;-)
Things that are different/missing with respect to Stereonet 10:
- .SVG output is not currently available in v. 11. The PDF output is now very robust and can be used in all cases where you would have used SVG. If you want SVG let me know so I can gauge the interest in its return to v. 11.
- Lines in Latitude-longitude format for plotting continent outlines on the upper hemisphere. My impression is that this feature was almost never used. If you would like to see it return, let me know
- Printing. Due to a bug in the compiler that I use, printing is currently disabled. As soon as the compiler is fixed, printing will be enabled.

Versions 10.4.6 — 2020.03.19

Fixes an issue where text annotations would lose their place and be misplotted after saving and reopening a file.
Some file icon issues fixed.
Crashes should be somewhat more graceful though no promises!

Versions 10.4.5 — 2020.02.25

Fixes a recently introduced bug where the Details Tab was blank when the user imported a text file from Stereonet Mobile.

Versions 10.4.4 — 2020.01.31

You can now plot small circles in the upper (or lower hemisphere)
Updated about box to a 2020 date!

Versions 10.4.2 — 2019.10.08 (PDFs & the clipboard finally work right release;-)

The mac version now comes as an installer package that is notarized by Apple for all of you Catalina early adopters!
The help file PDF is now incorporated into the application package. No more separate PDF files. Unless you remove the help pdf from the resources folder, it should always be available.
Fixed a bug where the Parse Text File dialog displayed white text on a white background when in dark mode
Fixed a bug with autonumbering batch annotations
When importing a text file in the older stereonet format (a one line header with a two character code), any lines after the one line header that start with “#” will be ignored.

Versions 10.4.0, 10.4.1 — 2019.10.01 (PDFs & the clipboard finally work right release ;-)

New robust PDF engine. Saved PDF files are vastly improved. Great and small circles are now polygons rather than unconnected line segments.
When the stereonet pane has the focus (blue focus ring), you can copy the graphic as a PDF in memory. Most Mac and many Windows graphics and word processing apps will recognize and paste the PDF at its original vector resolution. When saved to the clipboard the PDF is cropped to the size of the graphic on the screen
Fixed incorrect plotting of small circles when the view direction is not the default.
Other bug fixes. (v. 10.4.1 fixes a problem with pdf colorspaces)

Versions 10.2.9 — 2019.04.03

Fixed a crashing bug which occurred when calling planes from poles under certain conditions (Thanks, Will)

Versions 10.2.8 — 2019.01.28

New feature — Slope stability analysis. A stereonet plot for planar or wedge failure on rock slopes can now be accomplished by selectingCalculations>Slope Stability… This feature is explained in more detail here. Note that Stereonet is NOT a professional geotechnical engineering program and the user assumes all risk associated with the implementation of this feature!
New Feature — Calculate the lines of intersection for all of the checked planes in a data set (useful for wedge slope failure) by selecting Calculations>All Planes Intersections. The resulting intersection lines are placed in a new lines data set. The notes field for the lines datum will tell you which two planes produced that intersection line. Note that the number of intersection lines is N*(N-1) where N is the number of planes. If the number of checked planes is >50, Stereonet will warn you in a dialog box that the number of lines will be large and allow you to cancel the operation. If you proceed with calculating a large number of intersection lines, be prepared to wait several seconds!
Some crashing bugs related to contouring fixed

Version 9.5.4 — 2016.04.26

Fixed yet another crashing bug that occurred when the user had the Inspector Window open and a plane selected in the Data Sets tab, created a new planes data set then clicked on the newly created data set in the Data Set Listbox (thanks, Josh)

Version 9.5.3 — 2016.03.03

Fixed a crashing bug that could occur with a large number of data sets.
Fixed several cosmetic issues related to the appearance of mean vectors in PDF and
SVG plots

Version 9.5.2 — 2016.01.19

Fixed several crashing bugs that would occur when you opened the Inspector and clicked on the Contours tab when no data sets were entered
The mean vector for rose diagrams is now always drawn on top of the petals and always in black.
The new default for rose diagrams is "treat data as axes" (unless you have previously saved Preferences with that option turned off in the Inspector). [If you plot the mean vector and it doesn't appear to make sense, open the Analyses tab of the Inspector and make sure that "treat data as axes" is checked in the Rose diagram section. See Chapter 2 of my structure lab manual to understand why this happens.] With treat data as axes checked, the mean vector is calculated using Krumbein's mean and the von Mises Circular (azimuthal) distribution also reportsKrumbein's mean.
Mean vector in half circle roses now plots correctly.

Version 9.5.1 — 2016.01.07

The inevitable bug fixes after a major change: this time correcting some rogue menu checking behavior under certain conditions. Also, Plot Menu was not updating correctly after importing Stereonet v. 6 format files.
Mean vector calculation concentration factor (kappa) calculation has raised some concerns because Stereonet used/uses the Fisher et al. (1987, eqn. 5.26) estimation for N<16. The program now reports both the standard Fisher (1953) estimation and Fisher et al. (1987) estimations where you have fewer than 16 vectors. This should result in greater compatibility with some paleomag programs that only use the 1953 formulation, but bear in mind that some people think k = (N-1)/(N-R) provides a biased result for small N.
Minor rearrangement of the Plot menu
Cursor now remains a cross whenever the mouse isin the Stereonet plot pane.

Version 9.5.0 — 2016.01.03 (Happy New Year!)

Major new feature: Plotting applied to lines — contouring, cylindrical best fit, conical best fit and mean vectors — can now be turned on or off on a per data set basis. For example, in a file with three lines data sets, you can now choose to contour only the second set, while continuing to display scatter plots of the other data sets. In the plot menu, thecontouring, cylindrical best fit, continual best fit and mean vector menu choices all now have submenus where you can choose: All data sets (to turn on the, say, mean vector of all data sets), no data set (turn off plotting mean vector for all sets), and a separate menu entry to toggle on or off each individual data set depicting the same name as is shown in the Data Sets list box. The All Data Sets submenu choice functions exactly as the main menu choice in previous versions of Stereonet and has the same key command assigned to it.
New binary file format — toaccommodate the new plotting granularity, I had to implement a new binary file format. The new version of the program can read old file formats, but old versions cannot read the new format. However, Stereonet can now save a binary file in the previous version (back to v. 8.8) for those of you who need backwards compatibility with colleagues/students who have not yet updated. To do so, hold down the Shift and Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) Keys while choosing File>Save...
The choice of Kamb or 1% Area contouring has been moved to the top of the Contours tab of the Inspector palette. This was necessary to make the submenus in the Plot menu consistent. A benefit of this move is that your contouring preference is now saved when you set the Preferences for the app.
Printing from the File menu now correctly scales the plot for the page so that none of the symbols are distorted. Note that, although you can use File>Print to save a PDF, the File>Save as PDF will produce a higher quality graphic. The most versatile vector graphic format is File>Save as SVG, if your graphics program supports scaleable vector graphics (all web browsers support SVG and from the web browser you can usually export PDF if you need to do so). Click here to see an SVG file saved directly from Stereonet rendered in your browser.
Switched back to PDF help system (on the Mac) and updated the PDF user's manual to v. 9.5. [I never did like the Mac help system —ed.] The PDF Help manual can still be accessed from the Help Menu as long as it resides in the same directory as the program itself (and you con't change the name).
Several bugs fixed. Probably lots of new bugs introduced with the above changes. I breathlessly await your reports ;-)

Version 9.3.3 — 2015.11.28

Fixed obscure crashing bug that would happen when a lines data set had no points checked.
PDF and SVG files now follow the specifications set in the Inspector regarding the symbol and color used for the mean vector and Bingham axes (thanks, Alex!)

Version 9.3.2 — 2015.09.03

Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when you chose Edit>Copy All Data and then chose Edit>Paste Into Data Set

Version 9.3.1 — 2015.06.03

Corrected a bug where small circle data would not display correctly
The mean vector arrow on rose diagrams is always drawn using the rose diagram color (not the data set color) set in the Inspector.

Version 9.3.0 — 2015.05.13

Major improvements to the Rose diagram functionality, including:
- Scale the petals by either length or area (new). Only length was possible before
- Calculation of the mean direction for axial data (i.e., data with no directional significance). this is sometimes referred to as Krumbein's (1939) mean
- Half circle rose diagrams always show Krumbein's mean; full circle diagrams can either depict vector azimuths or, if "treat data as axes" is checked in the Inspector, the full circle diagrams will be symmetric (this has been a highly requested feature that I've resisted until now!)
- Addition of a Von Mises Distribution option to the Calculations menu which displays the same 2D azimuthal statistics as the Rose diagram displays. The program now calculates the circular variance, kappa, and 1 sigma standard error for azimuthal data.
Plots wil polar grids can now be saved as .pdf and .svg files
Fixed a bug that occurred when planes were being entered in "DD" format and the data details window was opened.

Version 9.2.3 — 2015.02.16

Corrected a bug that where the equator of the stereonet grid (EW line) would not be drawn in pdf and svg files if the grid was set to 10°.

Version 9.2.2 — 2015.01.31

Corrected a bug that would cause Stereonet to crash if a data set required more than 100 contour levels (Thanks to Al L.)

Version 9.2.1 — 2015.01.18

Corrected a bug in reading the notes fields when importing a "Lines & Planes" text file
Corrected a bug in saving data that were imported using "Lines & Planes" (Thanks to Gordon W.For helping me track this down)

Version 9.2.0 — 2014.08.18

View>Hide Unchecked Values removes the unchecked values in the data listbox from view.
The Search Window remembers your last search and automatically selects the same box.
File>Save Plot as PICT/EMF has been disabled (again) because of a still unfixed bug in the compiler I use. The only workaround is to use PDF or SVG format output (these are higher quality that PICT/EMF, anyway...)
Bug fixes...

Version 9.1.1 — 2014.07.19

Data>Batch Annotate now has a Find and Replace panel so you can you can batch replace any text in the Notes field for multiple observations
Rose diagrams now show the number of observations. Also cosmetic changes to rose diagram
Stereonet now remembers selected search criteria betweensearches
Corrected a bug that occurred when pasting data into a data set where the copied data had return characters in the notes field (those are now replaced with semicolons)
Fixed a rare crashing bug when changing the contour interval in the Inspector (e.g., completely erasing the old interval value before entering a new value)

Version 9.1.0 — 2014.05.29

New Data>Batch Annotate command for adding the same annotation to the Notes field of multiple observations all at once
Text file and clipboard parsing dialog now allows one to add multiple columns to the Notes field by adding comma or space separated column numbers to the new combo box for the notes field. Each column added tothe notes field is put on a separate line of the notes field.
The Search dialog now permits you to add the found matches to the existing checked data so you can sequentially add two subsets together.
Stereonet now correctly reads numbers entered in non-U.S. formats. It will use the number format specified in the user's system preferences.
A minor crashing bug — when the user tried to quit the programwhen there were no open windows — has been fixed
Fixed a bug in reading the old Stereonet v. 6 rake format text files ("RK")
Fixed cosmetic issues with reading in the text record from a stereonet binary file.

Version 9.0.6 — 2014.04.18

A few bugs associated with deleting data sets squashed (hopefully).
Stereonet nowchecks the screen size and forces the window to be smaller than the maximum screen size, even if a larger window size has been saved with preferences

Version 9.0.4 — 2014.03.18

The Parse Clipboard text dialog no longer appears when Using Edit>Copy All Data and then Edit>Paste into Data Set to move data from one data set to another within the program
In the Data Details window, up-down arrows have been added next to the datum number text box, allowing one to step easily through a data set, one datum at a time.
A bug changing scale in the extended KML export dialog box has been fixed with other minor cosmetic fixes as well.
The ability to import Stereonet v. 6 files in the old "PQ" format (lines in quadrant format,e.g., 45 N 27 W) has been restored.

Version 9.0.3 — 2014.02.11

Several small cosmetic bugs related to deleting a data set while contouring is turned on have been quashed.
Choosing Data>Enter with Mouse will display a small notification in the upper right hand corner of the Plot canvas. This notification also includes a reminder about what key to press when clicking the mouse to get lines or planes. This notification is NOT saved with the plot.
The angle between two clicked points window now displays the line and, if you are working onthe second line, the angle between lines as you drag the mouse around. This is particularly useful in conjunction with Enter data with mouse: you can, for example, click one point along a great circle then click and drag the mouse the exact angular distance along the great circle and when you release the mouse, if you are holding the shift key down, the program will plot the second point the specified distance from the first.

Version 9.0.1 — 2014.02.06; 9.0.2 — 2014.03.05

Corrected a bug that would cause Stereonet to crash under certain contouring conditions. Thanks to Mario Sánchez Gómez for help tracking down the bug.
Corrected a bug reading the Preferences file in versions 8.9.5 and higher. Stereonet 9.0.2 will write a brand new preferences file called "Stereonet9Prefs.txt" to the appropriate location the first time you run it. If you have made changes to the default Preferences, you will need to set them again and save them via the preferences dialog. Thanks to Myra Keep for helping to track this one down.

Version 9.0.0— 2014.01.28

Added two new color contouring options to choose from
Corrected numerous cosmetic bugs that reared their ugly heads when a contoured diagram had the size of the stereonet changed.
Contouring now works correctly when the view direction is changed fromthe default

Version 8.9.5, 8.9.6— 2014.01.24

Happy New Year update — only one new feature but it is a big one...
Contour Fill! Contours can now be filled with either a monochrome or a rainbow set of colors and plotted with or without contour lines. The contour fill can be made partially transparent and multiple datasets can be plotted on the same diagram. You can still plot just contour lines.
some menu items have been disabled at start up if there are no data sets entered as selecting them in that condition could cause a crash.
copyright updated to 2014 :-)
v. 8.9.6 corrects some screen refresh issues related to the new functionality

Version 8.9.2— 2013.11.24

Added a new planes format: “DR” which allows one to specify planes as Dip Azimuth and dip (e.g., 242/56) in addition to the already existing “DD” format (e.g., 56/242)
If you specify either DD or DR formats, the Data Details window will now show your planes orientations in those formats rather than in Strike and Dip.
Added a checkbox to the Inspector to specify a polar grid using either equal area or equal angle (without changing the view direction)
Fixed a bug that caused crashes when using two planes calculations.
Fixed a bug that caused the “Set Stereonet Radius” (under the View Menu) to work incorrectly.
The trend and plunge display in the plot pane was not showing the correct values when the view plunge was not vertical; this has been fixed
Disabled the Save Plot as PICT/EMF command as several functions that were used have been deprecated and cause crashes on modern systems. It may or may not be reinstated in the future...

Version 8.9.1— 2013.11.14

Stereonet’s help file is now accessible from the new Help menu
The Mac version of Stereonet is now code-signed with my own developer certificate from Apple which means that the first time you run it, you no longer have to go through the process of right-clicking on it as described in the text in the upper left of this page.

Version 8.9.0— 2013.10.21

You can now import old Stereonet v. 6 format files that used the QD format (e.g., N 60 W 45 N). Stereonet does not save data in this format, but this should help people with legacy files
The zoom slider for the Google satellite view in thedata details windowhas now been moved to one side, allowing Windows users to see it, perhaps for the first time! Windows users still do not see the strike and dip (or trend and plunge symbol) that is seen on Mac versions of the program. Sorry...
You can click the label for the elevation field in thedata details window to retrieve the elevation of the datum from the MapQuest elevation server and will overwrite whatever is already in the elevation field. Any previous values are written to the Notes text area of the Data details window.

Version 8.8.9 — 2013.08.28

Kml symbols can now be output as 2D symbols, which of course, are only useful if you are looking straight down in Google Earth
More bug fixes

Version 8.8.8 — 2013.08.06

More bugs related to reading old Stereonet v. 6 format files corrected. Other bugs also squashed.

Version 8.8.7 — 2013.07.27

Corrects a bug reading a data file in AD format using commas as delimiters where the quadrant was given as two letters (e.g., "SE") rather than just one ("S").
Corrects a bug that would cause a crash when reading more than one Stereonet v. 6 format data files.

Version 8.8.6 — 2013.07.04

Added a horizontal splitter between the data sets and the data list boxes on the right hand side of the Window so that you can resize their heights
Fixed a bug that occurred when deleting a data set
Fixed a bug where lines entered as rakes could not be selected by clicking on them in the stereonet
Cleaned up some of the code which could, of course, introduce interesting new bugs!

Version 8.8.5 — 2013.06.25, rev. 2013.06.27

cosmetic glitch with the Windows splash screen fixed -- not worth changing the version number so download it again if you downloaded in the last few days.
A recently introduced version broke the import of Stereonet 6 text files. This has now been fixed
Stereonet now quits correctly on Windows when you close the last remaining open Window
Tabbing order through dialog boxes has been improved

Version 8.8.4 — 2013.05.13

corrected a bug in the Edit>Paste into data set routine that was introduced by the new compiler
corrected a bug in the expanded KML save dialog box that you get when you hold down the shift key while choosing that option. Also added more options for using your own kml symbols.
Changed the splash screen

Version 8.8.3 — 2013.05.13

Option-dragging on a text annotation will duplicate the annotation
Compiled in a new compiler with minor interface changes
Corrected another crashing bug related toCalculations>Poles and Calculations>Planes from Poles thatoccurred when no other lines (or planes) data sets were present

Version 8.8.2 — 2013.05.13

Corrects a crashing bug in Calculations>Poles and Calculations>Planes from Poles that was introduced in v. 8.7.5. If you have downloaded v. 8.7.5 or 8.8.1 please replace them with this version.

Version 8.8.1 — 2013.05.30

Text annotations — Select Edit>Annotate Plot, click on the plot where you want the text to begin, enter your text and specify color and size if you want and your done. You can reposition existing text annotations simply by clicking and dragging then in the plot pane. Handles occur on either side of the annotation during the drag operation. Viewing annotations can be toggled on or off with Plot>Text Annotations, and annotations can be deleted with Edit>Delete All Annotations. Annotations can be up to 64 characters long. When you right- or control-click on an annotation, you will get a contextual menu which will allow you to edit or delete just that annotation.
New binary file format — the addition of text annotations has required a new binary file format. Stereonet 8.8 can read all older binary files; older versions will NOT be able to read Stereonet 8.8 binary files. Sorry…
Menu options pertaining to particular types of data sets are only enabled if that type of data actually exists. For example, if there are no Lines data sets, Plot>Lines will be grayed out and you will not be able to select it.
The usual bug fixes...

Version 8.7.5 — 2013.05.16

Drag to reorder the data sets in the Data Sets list box (upper right corner)
Improvements to text parsing (via files or the clipboard) so that Stereonet will work better with files generated by GeoID iPhone app
You can now copy complete data sets to a new or different document by selecting the dataset in the first document, choosing Edit>copy all data then pasting it into the second document with Edit>Paste into data set
Fixed bug in parsing comma separated values.

Version 8.7.0 — 2013.05.01

Half circle rose diagrams now work. Use the checkbox in the Analysis tab of the Inspector
New menu option to clear the plot: Plot>Clear Plot
Cosmetic improvement to drawing 2° grids
Fixed some glitches writing the Rose diagram results to the text analysis area.

Version 8.6.6 — 2013.04.11

Two planes calculations — line of intersection, acute and obtuse bisectors, and angle between planes
Convert to Lower hemisphere — new command to force all data to be in the lower hemisphere. To protect you from yourself, this command creates a new data set rather than overwriting the old one
You can now see the data for an unchecked, but selected, data set.
Several graphical glitches concerning the plotting of mean vectors have been fixed
Rose diagrams are only plotted when the traditional view direction is used (looking straight down on the lower hemisphere)
The four add data sets buttons ("+L", "+P", etc.) were getting out of hand so they have been replaced with a single drop-down menu.
v. 8.6.6 corrects a minor bug in the convert to lower hemisphere routine that was introduced in the short lived v. 8.6.5

Version 8.6.0 — 2013.03.24

Lasso selection now works (but only for lines). You can have it select either those points inside or outside the lasso.
New data type: Arcs. Arcs are segments of great circles that are drawn between a starting point and an ending point that you define by entering the trends and plunges of the corresponding lines. Arcs can cross the primitive and you can choose whether to plot the acute or obtuse angle. You can also specify that the program should draw and arrow head at either the start or the end of the arc (or both)
Redesign of the Data Sets tab of the Inspector. Now you only see data pertinent to the selected data set. You can select the data set from the popup menu in the Inspector or by clicking on it in the Data sets list box.
Fixed (hopefully) a bug with copy and paste on Windows version of the program

Version 8.5.1, 8.5.2 — 2013.03.06

Stereonet is now "document based" meaning that you can open as many different windows with different plots in them as you want.
When you start up the program, the About box is now displayed; you should select either the new blank file button or the open file if you want to open a Stereonet binary file. At any time, you can choose File>New and a new blank window will appear; likewise, file>open allows you to open another file while leaving the first one open as well.
You can now copy and paste data! Select some rows in one data set and paste them to a different data set in the same window or to a a dataset in a completely different window. You can also copy any tab delimited data from any text file (Including an Excel spreadsheet).
if stereonet doesn't recognize the format of data on the Clipboard, it will present you with a dialog box so you can tell it how to parse the clipboard data. Use Edit>Copy all data to include the data that only shows up in the Data Details Window. To paste into an existing data set, you have to use Edit>Paste into Data Set.
KML export of geographically registered 3D strike and dip and lineation symbols for plotting in Google Earth (thanks to Tom Blenkinsop and Nestor Cardozo for the idea). Click here for an example. If you use this option, please referenceBlenkinsop, T.G., 2012. Visualizing structural geology: From Excel to Google Earth. Computers & Geosciences 45, 52–56.
Bug fixes related to not saving the conical best fit with the plot

Version 8.0.4 — 2013.02.14

Data entry by mouse was broken and is now fixed
Conical best fit now uses the approach outlined in Mulchrone et al. (2013) so that it now works more reliably in the lower hemisphere [oops, not exactly, I'm still working on this.]
Other bug fixes and improvements

Version 8.0.2 — 2013.01.24

Fixed various issues related to rake format ("RK") and rake preferences selection, including a rotation bug
Fixed window rewriting problems when setting the stereonet size from View>Set Stereonet Size.
Details window now has a "2x" checkbox that will enable you to double the size of the satellite image/map

Version 8.0.1 — 2012.11.23 (counter reset)

Corrected a crashing bug in the Analysis tab of the Inspector when only planes were entered
Added a character count to the Notes field in the Details Window so you can tell when you are getting close to the 512 character limit for that field. Character count turns red when you exceed 512 characters

Version 8.0.0 — 2012.10.22

Major feature: Plotting lines or planes on Google satellite (shown above), terrain, or roadmap imagery by choosing Window>Data Details
New native data (binary) format now includes location information plus free form notes field where you can write anything about a datum in 512 characters or less. Stereonet 8 can read Stereonet 7 binary files (but not vice versa…)
Ability to parse any column oriented text file — particularly useful for entering location data.
Search across single or multiple data sets based on orientation, location or date info, or any text fragment from the free form notes field.
Axial plane finder in Calculations menu provides basic fold geometry analysis.
Return of the conical best fit routine.
Angle between clicked points now shows trend and plunge while clicking.
Fixed a bug in adding new data to existing data sets.
Unresolved issue: The Windows version draws the Google image on top of the orientation symbol and the scale slider. You can still scale the image with the scroll wheel of the mouse.

Version 7.3.6 — 2012.09.23

The Mac OS X version of the program is now a native Cocoa app with a more modern interface rather than the Carbon app as previously.
Corrected a bug in the angle between two planes routine
Corrected a bug introduced in previous version related to saving a new default window size from preferences
Disclosure triangle/arrows now behave in a more "standard" manner

Version 7.3.5 — 2012.09.18

Scans can now be repositioned by dragging them within the plot window by selecting Edit>Drag Image
Return of the Apparent Dip Calculator! You can use lines or a plane selected in an existing data set, or you can enter new values directly into the dialog box. The results can be written to an existing data file or a new data file for plotting. The Apparent Dip Calculator is a floating window that you can keep open if you have a lot of calculations to do.
Default height of the main window has been reduced to 640 pixels to accommodate users who prefer to keep their screen resolutions at low values (e.g., to increase the size of text on their screens). This will hopefully avoid the artifact that cause the text box to overwrite the bottom of the plot area. You can still resize the window to larger sizes once the program has been opened.
To compensate for the smaller initial main window size, a a new check box in the Preferences dialog, "Set current window size to default", will allow you to have set the initial size of the window to whatever you what.
Removed Plot Planes as Poles option. It was confusing too many people, particularly when they couldn't do a cylindrical best fit. Now, if you have entered planes and want to plot poles, you will have to choose Calculations>Poles first (which was the original behavior of the old Stereonet. If it turns out that LOTS of people loved plotting planes as poles without calculating poles first, I'll consider reinstating it.

Version 7.3.0

New Feature — import scans of existing stereonet plots, and overlay beneath the live stereonet in the program. You can use this to compare your data to published data or, in combination with Data>Enter with Mouse, you can extract digital values from published stereonets. Scans can be imported as pdf, tiff, png, or jpeg formats. New Plot menu option allows you to show or hide a scan.
New Feature — SVG (scalable vector graphics) output option for your plots. .svg is an open, high resolution graphics format that can be read by most modern graphics programs. Unlike other graphics output options in Stereonet, .svg saves small and great circles as open polygons rather than separate line segments for ease in touching up plots in graphics programs. Both .svg and .pdf options are higher resolution than the emf/pict format.
Bug fixes related to window display.

Version 7.2.4 — 2012.02.21

Mac version of Stereonet 7 posted for those who need a Carbon program that works on Mac OS X operating systems older than 10.6 or for those who need compatibility with the Stereonet 7 for Windows binary file format. For Mac users who have Mac OS X 10.6 or higher installed, I still recommend OSXStereonet. Also posted the Linux version of the program as I have had a few requests for one of those.
Corrected bugs related to deleting a data set or an individual datum from a data set
Fixed the default setting for Bingham axes to plot all three axes plus the great circle. (The program was defaulting to plotting only the largest principal axis)
Deactivated the maximize button in the main window as it was not stretching the window elements correctly. You can still resize the window to whatever you want by dragging the edge/corner of the window.
When no data sets are selected in the data sets listbox, no data will be displayed in the data listbox.
Added several informational dialogs:
- If a user tries to delete a data set, they are warned that it is undoable and they have the option of canceling
- If a user tries to do a cylindrical best fit when only planes have been entered they are now advised that they must calculate the poles first as cylindrical best fit only works on lines data sets. Users have been confused because of the option to plot planes as poles.
- If a user tries to rotate a "selected" data set but no data set is selected in the data sets list box.

Version 7.2.3 — 2012.01.11

Now uses GDI+ for anti-aliased (i.e., smoother) drawing to the screen.
Copyright updated to 2012 :-)

Version 7.2.1 — 2011.11.18

Variable rotation by unfolding beds. Choose a lines or planes data set, then select the data set that contains bedding where the observations were made, and click Okay. each datum will be unfolded by rotating the corresponding bedding back to horizontal.
Rose diagrams for planes: If the planes format is "AD" or AZ" the rose diagram will be based on the strikes of the planes; if the format is "DD" the rose diagram will be based on the dip azimuth rather than the strike azimuth.

Version 7.2.0 — 2011.11.07

Major new feature: enter data with mouse by clicking and dragging inside the stereonet.
Fixed bug where window not resized correctly when reading in a binary file
Fixed bug where program tried to draw error cone even when normalized mean vector length was <0.65

Version 7.1.6 & 7.1.7 — 2011.10.26

Planes can now be drawn as either solid or dashed lines
If only rose diagrams are showing, the equal area angle grid is not displayed. Instead equally spaced concentric circles, at either 5 or 10 percentage intervals, and spokes at 10° intervals are drawn and labeled as a scale for the rose diagram.This happens automatically and only when rose diagrams and nothing else are displayed. The value at the primitive is controlled by the entry inthe Inspector Analysis tab.
The outer edge of rose petals are now drawn as an arc rather than as a single straight line segment, which is much more attractive!
Plot mean vector on rose diagrams has been enabled
Fixed some interface bugs related to showing or hiding the data panels
Significantly speeded up selecting tabs in the Inspector -- Yay!

Version 7.1.5 — 2011.10.07

You can now hide the data set list and data list panes by toggling a disclosure triangle or from the Windows Menu. This makes the overall window narrower, which might be of help for people on small screens or if, for some reason, you want to hide the data.
Various optimizations to improve performance selecting from the Data set list. The Inspector also appears more rapidly, ~~though selecting tabs remains sluggish (sorry…)~~ FIXED in v. 7.1.7
Fixed a bug where reading in a binary file that was saved with a view plunge of 90 degrees would be read in with a view plunge that wasn’t exactly 90 degrees
Fixed a bug associated with calculating poles from planes and planes from poles
Planes can now be visualized as great circles and poles simultaneously

Version 7.1.2 — 2011.09.13

Cylindrical best fit now draws the best fitting plane and writes its orientation to the Analysis text pane
When you add a new data set, the appropriate plot type is automatically selected so you see your data plotted as you enter it. E.g., if you select new lines, Scatter will be turned on in the Plot Menu, etc.
Preferences dialog box has been added to allow the user to set their preferred default data format and stereonet format settings.

Version 7.1.1 — 2011.08.30

Fixed a bug in the Dip, Dip Azimuth (DD) format for planes. Previous versions did not handle this format correctly
Added uncertainty calculations to the cylindrical best fit/Bingham statistics
~~Disabled pop up menu for planes style in Inspector because those options have not yet been implemented~~ -- FIXED in 7.1.7
minor bug fixes

Version 7.1.0 — 2011.08.21

Drawing contour lines has now been implemented. You can now do either Kamb or 1% area contouring by selecting one of those options in the Contour submenu of the Plot Menu.
Contour lines are saved to PDF files and EMF files, they will print, and they are copied to the clipboard with the rest of the plot
Contours do not yet have a fill pattern. Those options have been turned off in the Contour tab of the Inspector
Lots of little bug fixes.

Version 7.0.4 — 2011.08.18

Yet another new binary data format. Previous files will not read in correctly, so I hope that you have been exporting your data as text files!
Stereonet can now handle input data of lines as rakes (pitches) on planes. To enter a new line-on-plane data set via rakes, hold down the shift key while clicking on the +L button. This will cause both a new lines and a new planes data set to be entered. These data sets should have the same name. The two letter format code for such data sets is “RK”.
The format code in the Data set list box has been changed to a two or three letter code, identical to that shown in the table in earlier in the users manual and as used by earlier versions of Stereonet.
Changing the format code in the Data set list box will now change the format of the data listing.

Version 7.0.3 — 2011.08.17

New binary file format. It will read the old format with only minor glitches in the analysis text. Nonetheless, you should re-save all of your binary files.
Interface for contouring has been put in place (e.g., the Inspector now has a Contours tab) ~~but contouring itself still does not work~~.

Version 7.0.2 — 2011.08.16

minor bug fixes and behavior changes
more predictable Inspector behavior

Version 7.0.1— 2011.08.15 -- Initial beta release!

Things that are known not to work in this release (some may never be fixed…):
~~[Contouring has not yet been implemented]~~ -- FIXED, mostly in v. 7.1.0
Set view direction does not work with latitude-longitude plots. This means that you are effectively limited to viewing continents in the Western Hemisphere
~~Conical best fit has not yet been implemented~~
~~[Adding lines by their rake in a plane has not yet been programmed]~~ -- FIXED in v. 7.0.3
~~There is no way (yet) to combine data files, either by appending them to existing data sets or by or by copying and pasting between data sets~~
Plotting small circle in the upper hemisphere is broken
~~Variable rotation (e.g., by unfolding lines associated with bedding) has not yet been implemented~~
~~Half circle rose diagrams and plotting mean directions for rose diagrams have not yet been implemented~~
~~Refreshing the data listing does not always work. You may have to click on the data set again to refresh the data listing~~ -- FIXED
~~There is no way to control the format of the data listing at present~~ -- FIXEDin v. 7.0.3
~~There is currently no way to parse an unidentified text file that does not start with the standard two character header from earlier versions of Stereonet.~~

Stereonet 11 | Rick Allmendinger's Stuff (2024)

FAQs

What does a stereonet show? ›

Stereonets are a graphical tool representing the hemisphere of a globe, used for presentation, analysis and interpretation of three-dimensional directional data such as planes and lines.

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What is stereographic projection in geology? ›

Stereographic projection is used in geology to decipher the complexities of deformed rock by looking at the relationships between planes and linear structures; their bearings (trends) and angular relationships one with the other. The data is plotted on a stereonet as great circles and points (Wulff and Schmidt nets).

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What is great circle in stereonet? ›

Stereographic Projection. For a plane (e.g. a discontinuity surface), its intersection with the lower half of the reference sphere defines a unique line on the stereonet (in the shape of a circular arc called a “great circle”.

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Why use a stereographic projection? ›

A major advantage of stereographic projection is that rotational movements of an object can be followed; this is particularly valuable in the manufacture of complex objects where an orientation has to be set on a machine for the production of a particular face.

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How do you interpret stereographic projection? ›

Using a stereographic projection, we can represent the extended plane using a sphere. Let the x₁-axis coincide with the real axis of C and let the x₂-axis coincide with imaginary axes of C. The point (0, 0, 1) on S is called the north pole. Let (x₁, x₂, x₃) be any point on S not equal to the north pole.

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What are the 4 main types of map projections? ›

The four main types of map projections are conformal projection, equal-area projection, equidistant projection, and true direction projection, also called equal-angle projection.

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What are the 3 types of folds that can form in rocks? ›

There are three basic types of folds (1) anticlines, (2) synclines and (3) monoclines.

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Why are rhumb lines better than great circles? ›

Although a great circle is a shortest path, it is difficult to navigate because your bearing (or azimuth) continuously changes as you proceed. Following a rhumb line covers more distance than following a geodesic, but it is easier to navigate.

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What is the difference between rhumb line and great circle? ›

A great circle is the shortest path between two points along the surface of a sphere. A rhumb line is a curve that crosses each meridian at the same angle. Azimuth is the angle a line makes with a meridian, measured clockwise from north.

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What is plunge and trend? ›

Trend and plunge

Plunge, or angle of plunge, is the inclination of the feature measured downward relative to horizontal. Trend is the feature's azimuth, measured in the direction of plunge. A horizontal line would have a plunge of 0°, and a vertical line would have a plunge of 90°.

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What do numbers on poles mean? ›

Butch Bernhardt of the Western Wood Preservers Institute in Vancouver, Wash., said the birthmark information includes the pole's manufacturer and the plant where it was produced, the species of tree (typically Douglas fir, southern pine or western red cedar), the preservative used on the wood, the year of its treatment ...

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What does ous mean on a pole? ›

But rather than being graffiti, a gang message or a misspelled reference to The Ohio State University, the marks are actually part of a Penelec maintenance project. And “OUS” is the initials for the Penelec contractor completing the work — Osmose Utility Services.

What is the formula for roof pitch? ›

How to Calculate Roof Pitch as a Ratio. The traditional method of measuring roof pitch is to display it as a ratio of X:12. This is done by measuring the number of inches a roof rises vertically for every 12 inches it extends horizontally.

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How do you write strike in the azimuth notation? ›

In the azimuth system (using the Right-Hand Rule), the strike of a plane dipping to the west will be between 180 - 360. For example, N20E, 60NW = 200, 60. That is, the strike in azimuth is given such that the dip is always to the right. Most stereonet computer programs use this notation.

What is plunge and azimuth? ›

Azimuth - a horizontal angle (between 0 and 360°) measured clockwise from true north, which has an azimuth of 000. As a couple of examples, E has an azimuth of 090 while SW has an azimuth of 235. Plunge (inclination) - the vertical angle, measured downward, between the horizontal and a line.

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How do you find true dip? ›

A hemisphere of unit radius is used in graphical and mathematical derivation by four somewhat different methods of the formula tan Ψ = tan α cos θ, where Ψ is the angle of an apparent dip, α is the angle of a true dip, and θ is the angle between the direction of an apparent dip and a true dip.

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What are the basic principles of stereoscopic projection? ›

Principle of stereographic projection

For stereographic projection, a line or a plane is imagined to be surrounded by a projection sphere (Fig. 1a). A plane intersects the sphere in trace that is a great circle that bisects the sphere precisely. A line intersects the sphere in a point.

Who invented the stereographic projection? ›

ABSTRACT. The origin of the polar and equatorial stereographic projections can be traced back to Hipparchos (d. 125 bc).

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What are the 7 elements of a map? ›

Map Elements. Most maps contain the same common elements: main body, legend, title, scale and orientation indicators, inset map, and source notes. Not all are necessary or appropriate for every map, but all appear frequently enough that they're worth covering.

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Which map is the most accurate? ›

View the world in correct proportions with this map. You may not know this, but the world map you've been using since, say, kindergarten, is pretty wonky. The Mercator projection map is the most popular, but it is also riddled with inaccuracies.

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Why is it called a stereographic projection? ›

The stereographic projection is a mapping that projects the sphere onto a plane. This projection is defined on the whole sphere, except at the projection point.

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How many types of folds are there? ›

There are three main types of folds: anticlines, synclines, and monoclines.

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Who invented stereographic projection? ›

The stereographic projection was exclusively used for star charts until 1507, when Walther Ludd of St. Dié, Lorraine created the first known instance of a stereographic projection of the Earth's surface. Its popularity in cartography increased after Rumold Mercator used its equatorial aspect for his 1595 atlas.

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