Incaplot (Isochron calculation and plotting)

Incaplot is a GUI-based (Python tkinter) scatterplot software that allows presentation of thermochronological data in state-of-the-art daughter-parent plots and calculate geological ages. Besides, it also allows calculation of single-grain ages and multi-purpose plotting, e.g. for age-grainsize or age-elevation diagrams.

Updates in version 1.38 include:

    • The age settings tab now shows the names of the calculation constants.
    • Added a new option for fission-track age calculation, for which it is also possible to provide zeta and rho D in a column of the input table.
    • The X and Y label inputs now provide several suggestions apart from the the possibility to type in own label names.
    • New output sigma level allows to specify the uncertainty level for the graphical or numerical outputs.
    • Warning messages will show up for (1) missing input values when plotting or calculating single-grain ages, (2) errors related to color-coding, (3) occurrence of NaN values in the loaded data, (4) modifying fixed physical constants in the age settings tab.
    • Using different data-selection methods at the same time is now enabled.
    • In the add lines tab, it is possible to add a line with a specific age to a plot for comparison to the data.
    • The raw regression and expand pooled age uncertainty checkboxes are now disabled, when not using the sample-age calculation.
    • It is now possible to use inward ticks.
    • The new default font is sans-serif.
    • The X and Y limits default option is now called ‘auto’.
    • The regression and pooled-age info label positions are now fixed with respect to plot axes.
    • The workflow of Härtel and Enkelmann (2024) for interpreting data patterns in the D-P plot can now be accessed in a separate window.
    • The confidence-interval table is now part of the data and method selection frame
    • Uncertainties are now given as rounded to the first significant figure of the uncertainty or to integer Ma, whichever is smaller.

If you'd like to be notified about future Incaplot updates, please contact birk.haertel@ucalgary.ca.

Incaplot is available for Windows (Windows 10) and Mac OS (OS 10 Catalina and younger). For issues using Incaplot on Mac see the user manual.

To use Incaplot, download the .exe or one of the .app files and open it on your computer. For Mac users, it may be necessary to use the unix executable and make sure that Terminal is the primary program to open this file.

Incaplot accepts column-based .csv, .xls, or .xlsx files. Please make sure that there are no NAs or additional numbers in data columns.

The attached .xlsx file contains example datasets that show the typical data structure used in Incaplot.

For further information or trouble-shooting, please contact birk.haertel@ucalgary.ca.

Acknowledgements: I thank Thomas Benkenstein for providing helpful comments on how to set up the software and how to implement some functions, Matthias Scheiter for many helpful suggestions regarding the user-friendliness of the program, and Joel Padgett, Taís Fontes Pinto, Elisha Whelan, Eva Enkelmann, Xin Qiao and Jinji Li for testing earlier versions of Incaplot, pointing out bugs and required features, and for helping with the trouble-shooting in different operating systems. I especially thank Joel Padgett and Elisha Whelan for testing version 1.37 and Eva Enkelmann, Joel Padgett, Akeek Maitra, and Taís Fontes Pinto for providing feedback and suggestions that led to version 1.38.