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Tricycle: A Universal Conversion Tool For Digital Tree-Ring Data

There are at least 21 dendro-data formats used in dendrochronology laboratories around the
world. Many of these formats are read by a limited number of programs, thereby inhibiting
collaboration, limiting critical review of analyses, and risking the long-term accessibility of datasets. Some of the older formats are supported by a single program and are falling into disuse, opening the risk for data to become obsolete and unreadable. These formats also have a variety of flaws, including but not limited to no accurate method for denoting measuring units, little or no metadata support, lack of support for variables other than whole ring widths (e.g. earlywood/latewood widths, ratios and density). The proposed long-term solution is the adoption of a universal data standard such as the Tree-Ring Data Standard (TRiDaS). In the short and medium term, however, a tool is required that is capable of converting not only back and forth to this standard, but between any of the existing formats in use today. Such a tool is also required to provide continued access to data archived in obscure formats. This paper describes TRiCYCLE, a new application that does just this. TRiCYCLE is an open-source, cross-platform, desktop application for the conversion of the most commonly used data formats. Two open source Java libraries upon which TRiCYCLE depends are also described. These libraries can be used by developers to implement support for all data formats within their own applications.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/622638
Date07 1900
CreatorsBrewer, Peter W., Murphy, Daniel, Jansma, Esther
ContributorsMalcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology, Cornell University, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Cultural Heritage Agency, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE), Amersfoort, The Netherlands
PublisherTree-Ring Society
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, text
RightsCopyright © Tree-Ring Society. All rights reserved.
Relationhttp://www.treeringsociety.org

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