PDF File to ListPlot?

Questions
1

Greetings,

Is there anyway in Hades to import the attached PDF chart and convert it to a ListPlot?

Best,

Dean Sparrow

2

I don’t know of a way to automatically extract points, but I often do this by digitizing. The method is this:

Import the graphic

Click it to open it and get the tool bar

Open the coordinates Tool.

Digitize the points of interest and copy the coordinates.

Assign them to a variable by pasting them into the notebook.

Do the same with identifiable coordinates, like the corners.

Use the corner coordinates, together with their values you read from the graph to make a RescalingTransform.

Apply the RescalingTransform to the points of interest.

Now you have a set of actual points in the graph coordinates. It’s not much fun, but it works.

Regards,
David

PS. I tried to import your pdf, and Mathematica’s import utility crashed. I attach a png of it which I converted with Photoshop.

3

Thanks for the advice

4

When I try to use the Import[] command on this file, I get a message saying that PDF.exe stopped working. (Mathematica 10.2, Win 7)

5

I have the same issue; a png file works though.

6

I had the same problem, which is why I converted it to a png. (Photoshop could read the pdf with no problem.)
I sent the problem description and the pdf to tech support.

7

Mathematica versions 8.0.4 and 9.0.1 on Windows 7 x64 are able to import your PDF file (only textual elements are decoded incorrectly) but version 10.2 for some reason fails. For your pleasure I attach the Notebook with your file already Imported as a Graphics expression to this post. I included into the Notebook also the first few steps one could undertake for preparing the Imported data for analysis. Hope this helps. See this post of mine for further details.

8

Thank you. I actually have 10.1 Home Version; I’m a poor undergraduate student. :frowning:

9

Having run into this limitation of 10.2 before (and getting desperate), i use the “xpdf” code to convert the file to a PNG and then import the PNG:

RunProcess[{"pdftopng.exe", "-r", requestedDPI, yourFileName, outFileName}]
newImage = Import[outFileName];

This can be a little faster than the built in function for importing the PDF - depending on the PDF.

Cheers,
Mark

10

Nevermind, Popkov’s linked answers are awesome.

Mark

11

Thank you, everyone. You all are out of my “league”!