GIS-stereoplot: an interactive stereonet plotting module for ArcView 3.0 geographic information system

Equal-angle and equal-area stereonets provide a powerful means to display and analyze angular relationships between sets of directional data. However, they are limited in that they are unable to represent the potential spatial relationships which may exist between the sample points. Advances in affordable and user-friendly desk-top Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have allowed this deficiency of conventional stereonets to be addressed. A prototype interactive stereonet-plotting module for the desk top GIS ArcView 3.0, which allows the spatial aspects of directional data to be better appreciated, is presented. This module allows the spatial data selection tools of GIS to be used to select a subset of structural data points which can then be plotted, as points, planes, or poles to planes on either an equal-angle (Wulff) or equal-area (Schmidt) stereonet. Features selected on the stereonet can be related back to the original map data and vice versa.