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Hi,
I am a marine biologist working on encrusting animals and algae that live on rock surfaces underwater. One of the common techniques used in our field is to photograph specified areas of rock over time or in different places and compare the abundances of these organisms in terms of percent cover, which is commonly estimated by counting whatever is under 100 (or 200 or 400, say) randomly positioned dots placed on the slide. In the past I have projected slides onto large poster-sized printouts of the dots (open circles), which I generate using the random number generator in Excel (I plot the numbers as a scatterplot, shaped to fit the dimensions of 35mm film slides). I use different sets of random dots for different times etc., to keep it random. if say 10 dots fall on barnacle X, then it’s counted as 10% cover (with 100 dots).
Now I am shifting to doing this on the computer with digital photos. A friend has been doing this for some time, and what he’s doing is rather crude – generating the dots the same way I am, printing them out on acetate, and taping the acetate to the computer screen! I would like to be able to open the excel plot as a layer over the slide in photoshop. I have attempted to do this, but the results are crappy – I can’t see the dots very well at all.
Does anyone have advice on how this could be done elegantly? (or at all?) I much appreciate any replies.
Thanks!
Bob
I am a marine biologist working on encrusting animals and algae that live on rock surfaces underwater. One of the common techniques used in our field is to photograph specified areas of rock over time or in different places and compare the abundances of these organisms in terms of percent cover, which is commonly estimated by counting whatever is under 100 (or 200 or 400, say) randomly positioned dots placed on the slide. In the past I have projected slides onto large poster-sized printouts of the dots (open circles), which I generate using the random number generator in Excel (I plot the numbers as a scatterplot, shaped to fit the dimensions of 35mm film slides). I use different sets of random dots for different times etc., to keep it random. if say 10 dots fall on barnacle X, then it’s counted as 10% cover (with 100 dots).
Now I am shifting to doing this on the computer with digital photos. A friend has been doing this for some time, and what he’s doing is rather crude – generating the dots the same way I am, printing them out on acetate, and taping the acetate to the computer screen! I would like to be able to open the excel plot as a layer over the slide in photoshop. I have attempted to do this, but the results are crappy – I can’t see the dots very well at all.
Does anyone have advice on how this could be done elegantly? (or at all?) I much appreciate any replies.
Thanks!
Bob
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