RadialPlotter: a Java application for fission track, luminescence and other radial plots

Single-grain measurements become common practice in fission track, Ar / Ar, U-Pb, (U-Th)/He and optical dating. Because single-grain signals are small, the measurement uncertainties of single-grain ages are typically larger and more variable than those of multi-grain aliquots of the same sample. Invented by Rex Galbraith in 1988, the radial plot is a graphical method for comparing several estimates having different precisions. Radial plots have been used in fission track and luminescence dating, but can be applied to other kinds of data as well. RadialPlotter is the first standalone computer program implementing all these applications. The program has a simple interface for three kinds of data: Fission Tracks, Luminescence and ‘Other’. Its graphical output can be saved in bitmap (.png) and vector (.pdf) formats. Data points can be colour-coded to show a third variable such as chemical composition or a kinetic parameter. RadialPlotter was programmed in Java and is, therefore, platform-independent. It can be downloaded free of charge from http://pvermees.andropov.org/radialplotter.