digital calipers & interface software

[Heidi M. Meudt]

Dear Taxacomers:

I have become increasingly interested in using digital calipers to
take morphological measurements on herbarium plant specimens.  I'm
also interested in finding an appropriate computer program to
interface the calipers with a spreadsheet program like Microsoft
Excel or Access to make data collection more streamlined.  If anyone
has any advice, I'd be very grateful (please respond to the list or
privately to my e-mail below).  I'm particularly curious to find out
if anyone (especially botanists) has an opinion regarding how
calipers vs. rulers/reticles compare when doing measurements on
herbarium specimens with a dissecting scope in terms of usefulness,
time issues, ease of use, accuracy, etc.  In other words, is buying a
digital calipers & interface software worth my money and time, or
should I stick to rulers and the scope's reticle?

Thanks in advance!

Heidi
Heidi M. Meudt
doctoral candidate in systematic botany
University of Texas at Austin
BIO 311
Austin, TX 78712  USA

fax 512/232 3402
heidimeudt at mail.utexas.edu
http://www.bio.utexas.edu/grad/heidimeudt/Ourisia