DRAGON: A Tool for Extracting Quantitative Data from Pole Figure Representations of Crystallographic Texture in Literature

The ICME paradigm has helped to shift the materials field to be more quantitative, but some topical areas, such as texture comparisons, have lagged behind due to the scarcity of numeric datasets. Texture data is usually published only as visualizations like pole figures, which inhibits its reusability. DRAGON is a newly developed, MATLAB-based tool for extracting quantitative data from pole figures and reconstructing an orientation distribution function (ODF), by interpolating between datapoints placed by the user along contour lines and at local extrema. This work introduces the workflow and user interface of DRAGON and then investigates the uncertainty due to human–computer interaction during use of the tool. The reconstruction process is most robust against user-based error for highly symmetric systems and is most sensitive to variance in placement of local extrema of the pole figures. Based on this analysis, specific recommendations are made for reducing user-based error.