Stereonet Applications for

Windows and Macintosh

Declan G. De P aor
D e p a r t m e n t of E a r t h & P l a n e t a r y Sciences, 20 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA 02138, U.S.A. depaor@eps.harvard.edu

A b s t r a c t - Stereonet applications with advanced graphical user in-

terfaces and m a n y custom features are now available on a commercial
basis from a n u m b e r of sources. The best Windows T M application in this
reviewer's opinion is StereoNet by Per Ivar Steinsund whilst the leading
Macintosh application is Neil Mancktelow's StereoPlot.

Introduction

One of the first applications t h a t structural geologists found for their new
personal computers in the early 1980s was the construction o f s t e r e o g r a m s (alias
stereoplots, or stereonets). Since t h a t time, net drawing applications have come
a long way. The purpose of this review is to alert readers to the existence of
relatively new and advanced stereonet applications.

StereoNet

StereoNet for Windows is the creation of Per Ivar Steinsund ( p e r i v a r ~ b g . u i t . n o )

and is sold by Rockware Inc. for $299. It requires an 80286 or better processor,
2MB of RAM, and Windows 3.1 or '95. There is no limit to the n u m b e r of d a t a
points t h a t can be plotted given enough memory; for example, 1MB of RAM can
hold 125,000 points, considerably more t h a n the average structural geologist
needs! StereoNet supports 24 bit color and can send output to any Windows-
compatible printer. Data can be exchanged with other Windows applications such
as Microsoft's Excel T M by cutting and pasting to and from the clipboard. Planes can
be plotted as great circles or as poles using a variety of symbols. Data can be
contoured and analyzed statistically. Two dimensional orientation d a t a can be
presented as a rose diagram (Fig.l).

StereoNet comes with a very good user manual. The one area of confusion
concerns plotting and file formats. The m a n u a l states t h a t "the dip direction
format uses 360 degrees...and the strike should be in the dip direction." W h a t is
m e a n t is t h a t dip direction data is to be used instead of strike data. The m a n u a l
refers to the "plunge" of a lineation in a plane when "pitch" would be a more

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 Structural Geology and Personal Computers

Fig. 1. Sample output from StereoNet for Windows. a) Slip linear plot.
b) Density plot. c) Two types of rose diagram, d) Sample tool palette with
explanation. Scanned from manual.

appropriate term and the user is instructed a) to use a negative striation plunge
"if the striation is in the opposite direction to the strike" and b) to indicate "the
movement direction with a U (up) or D (down)". One example given is "-16 ~ D" for
a lineation on a plane with strike 120 ~ and dip 25 ~ Many students will have a
difficult time figuring out the slip system intended by this convention! However,
a little practice with test data should clear up any confusion.

In addition to its friendly graphical user interface (Fig. 2), StereoNet's

great strength lies in the supported computations, which include calculations of
plane intersections, three dimensional rotations of data sets, and eigenvector
analysis.

StereoPlot

StereoPlot is d i s t r i b u t e d as s h a r e w a r e by its author, Neil M a n c k t e l o w

(neil@erdw.ethz.ch). One m a y examine the application free of charge but if you

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 Stereonets for Windows and Macintosh

Fig. 2. Sample output from StereoPlot for the MacOS. a) View of three
program windows; data spreadsheet, graphic window, and tear-off
palette with pop-up menus, b) Dialog box for rotation of d a t a set about
an a r b i t r a r y axis.

decide to keep it for research or teaching use, then you are requested to pay the
license fee of 100 Swiss Francs.

StereoPlot is available in versions optimized for the PowerMac, for any

Macintosh with a floating point processor, and for older Macintosh computers.
The m a x i m u m n u m b e r of data supported on a single plot is 1,000 though a larger
5,000 point, memory-hogging version can be requested from the author. The 1,000
point version should suffice for most users and requires only 1MB of RAM. The
program uses color QuickDraw T M routines for rapid refreshing on screen and
Postscript T M printing technology for optimum hard copy resolution.

The program makes full use of the s t a n d a r d Macintosh user interface.

Balloon Help may be turned on in order to see explanations of interface items. The
interface (Fig. 2) consists of a spreadsheet window and a graphics window. Data
is entered either by opening a tab-delimited TEXT file, or by typing entries at the
keyboard. Data can be cut and pasted and mistakes can be undone. Menu items
are selected in order to create a plot and plotting details such as color and symbols
are controlled by s t a n d a r d tear-off palettes and pop-up menus.

A significant feature of StereoPlot is t h a t plots can be overlain, so t h a t

points from s e p a r a t e subareas, for example, can be plotted on a single diagram.
However, these cannot be contoured or statistically analysed as a single entity.
The ability to create multiple overlays is a great a d v a n t a g e for those occasions
when such a feature is needed and a nuisance at other times. Because a click and
drag of the mouse creates a new overlay, one m u s t be careful not to click the mouse
at the wrong time. The text entry process is also a little irritating. Overall,
however, this is a very useful program with lots of extra features such as the
ability to rotate data about an inclined axis (Fig. 2b).

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