Raymond Dausman wrote: >I am looking for a suggestion for a good software package >that specializes in cataloging historical artifacts. I would >also like to find a source for a package called SURFER. Has >anybody used SURFER and if so, how does it work for you? I >would appreciate your comments. I haven't worked much with artifact cataloging programs but I have used SURFER rather intensively over the last 6 years, both the MS-DOS and the newer Windows versions. The Windows version is far easier to use and more capable than the earlier DOS versions. This program creates a grid from your original data and creates isolines (contours) from the calculated grid values. In other words, you enter the actual Z values (such as elevation) which you collected at points of known position. The software than creates a rectangular gird large enough to encompass all you data points and calculates Z values for each grid intersection. The contour lines are then calculated based on the Z values of the grid intersections rather than the actual values you collected. Because the software does not honor you original data points, a certain amount of "softening" of the data occurs, i.e. you lose you high and low values. For the average archaeological topo contour map or artifact distribution map, this is quite acceptable. In addition, you can specify the distance between grid intersections and the contour intervals and the program has several options for calculating the grid values to improve accuracy. A more serious shortcoming of the software, both old and new versions, is it's limit of seven significant digits for each value entered. Again, if you are using coordinates from a small grid established over a site, this should be no problem. However, much of my data includes UTM or State Plane coordinates requiring at least 8 significant digits, e.g. an easting value of 13,840,546.34. SURFER rounds off larger values such as this, thus degrading the accuracy of the data. This limitation can also be worked around, but the explanation is too long to include here. The DOS versions of SURFER were also limited in the number of data points you could enter (14,400 points for the last DOS version) while the Windows version has no such limits. Again, this is not usually a problem for archaeological data, although I routinely have files containing tens or hundreds of thousands of data points. Generally, for archaeological purposes, SURFER serves quite well. Although my applications for surfer tend to push its capabilities to the limit and beyond, I have still found it very useful. I hope some of this has been helpful. Steve Hoyt [log in to unmask]