There are many skills that a person can contribute to the archaeological community. Some people can organise digs, some have the artistic skills for illustrating sections or finds, some have a large expanse of free brain space to fit in a knowledge of pottery, some even can swing a mattock for extended periods of time without the need for medical attention. None of this applies to me. So how, I pondered, can I best serve the archaeological community and become an 'expert'. The answer was to take my day job as a computer programmer and do something constructive with it.

Geophysics is a very important field in archaeology, especially now with the emphasis on non-destructive methods of recording archaeology favoured when sites are not under direct threat from development. The problem is the whole business is still expensive, with the cost of equipment running into thousands of pounds.

After coming across a cheap resistivity meter provided by the 'Council for Independant Archaeology' and 'TR Systems Ltd' I decided to try writing some windows software to go with it. The software is not restricted to this particular meter however and can be used for any set of resistivity or magnetometry data in electronic or paper format, and most importantly it is FREE.

Current Features :

• Enter data from keyboard or text files
• Import from RM15 & TR Systems resistivity meters, FM18/36 magnetometers and the Arc-Geo logger
• Export of data to text files
• Previews of data sets
• Image view in Grey Scale, Dot Density and Relief
• Display range clipping
• Data and selection statistics
• Printing of images with image info
• Export of images to PNG (Portable Network Graphic) image files and VRML
• Metadata Storage
• Continuously sampled data processing
• Filters, including :
  • Despike
  • Direct modification of data in a selection
  • Interpolation
  • Geological Flattening
  • Sharpen
  • Edge correction
  • Destripe
  • Clip Data

This download is for the Beta software, version 0.80. As it is Beta software, it is less than perfect. Download the installer (it is in a zip file) and run it to install the software. Please read the help file thoroughly before attempting to use Snuffler.

Download the file here : snuffler.zip (5.5Mb)