Meter - from Tonne Software

THE Windows ® program for drawing analog meter scales

This program is copyrighted and is not to be placed on another website
nor is it to be placed on any medium for distribution excepting a single instance
in which Tonne Software (and the ARRL) have entered into a written contract.
If you have obtained it from another site, they are posting it illegally.
Such a copy may very well be obsolete.

Included on the CD accompanying the 2009 ARRL Handbook

Meter (trial version) is one of the programs included on the Bonus CD accompanying the 2009 ARRL Handbook

(Updated 12 June 2009; revision history is at the bottom of this page)

This meter scale drawing program is designed to have a computer do the hard work in making a precision scale for a d'Arsonval analog meter. The resulting scales will typically appear as nice (or nicer!) as those found on commercial meters. Here are the highlights of this program:

This program has the uncommon ability to "flatten" the arc a user-selectable amount to make a more modern-appearing scale. This is most usable with the thin "tubular" or "spadeless" style of pointer.
Meter draws up to four scales on a meter face.
The program does dB, vu, VSWR and S-meter scales; each of those routines has appropriate options for customization. All of those are in addition to totally-arbitrary scales.
A graphic may be imported and placed on the scale. All the common graphic types (.BMP, .GIF, .ICO and .JPG) are accepted. Width, height and placement can be freely adjusted.
Each scale can have its own number of tic marks, how many are made bold, how many are labeled, its color, etc.
Each scale can have its own fontsize; ticmark lengths and the spacing to the ticmark labels follows accordingly.
The length and width of both the minor and major tic marks are each adjustable.
The arcs may be printed or omitted; their width (thickness) can be specified. 360 degree arcs are supported.
The program delivers output to any graphics-capable printer, color or black-and-white, which has been installed on the Windows system. Just prior to printout the printer-selection panel appears to allow a last-minute change of printer or redirection to a file.
The scale is written directly to the printer for maximum fidelity; the output is not a "screen dump." The fidelity of the printed output will be much better than even a high-end monitor.
The plate (background) color may be freely specified.
In addition to each scale's label, five more text strings can be placed on the plate. Each of these can be placed in arbitrary locations with its own font size and color.
Up to five "Highlights" may be added to a plate. These may be used to indicate warning, overload, or target areas. Each has indepdently assignable size, position and color.
The scaleplate width and height, the mounting hole positions, positioning of scales on the plate, and other items are all adjustable.
Each scale can have a specified linearity; specify a power (wattmeter) scale or a slightly nonlinear AC voltmeter scale with a few key strokes.
A calibration routine allows correction of printed output width and height errors, regardless of the cause.
Presentation on screen is autoscaled to always make a full-sized image regardless of scale size. The printer printout is auto-centered appropriately.
The program handles plate widths from 20 up to 180 mm, plate heights from 10 up to 180 mm.
Extensive entry checking reduces probability of ridiculous results.
A context-sensitive Help system with dozens of subjects and numerous graphics forms a virtual manual. The AppNote on this site is included in the Help system.
In addition to that Help system, most of the input text boxes to specify items are supported by a graphic illustrating the item being changed. Just click on the button immediately-adjacent to the entry box to see the supporting graphic.
Text may be printed or omitted; most of the fonts available on your computer can be selected.
The various dimensional entries are all metric (mm). A ruler in millimeters is printed out along with the scale.
To support the ruler, a grid showing millimeters is printed on the screen.
All of the design data is written automatically to a "LastSession" file at program exit time, allowing a simplified program restart. Restart the program, click on "Last Session" and continue where you left off.
The supplied file as downloaded is a self-extracting installation routine. The program itself is installed in a standard manner. You may place its icon on the desktop as a shortcut.
This program is not a general-purpose drafting tool, and it won't duplicate the appearance of all existing scales. It will, however, do a very nice job of making modern-appearing meter scales in a vast majority of cases.
Using the text-based key system, upgrades are free: just download any later version, uninstall the old, install the new and get on with your projects!
Meterscale drawing methods involving pen and ink, erasers, compasses or transfer letters are now history.

Here are screen dumps from the program illustrating some of the outputs to the screen. Click on them to see larger versions; use your brower's BACK button to return.

Plate design page:	Scale design page:	Text entry page:
Graphic entry page:	Highlight entry page:	Help:
Color selection:	Linearity exponent help:	vu meter:
Wattmeter:	S-meter:	Arbitrary scale:
White on black:	Modulation monitor:	Quadrant plate style:

Want to have a third-party monitor this page for any changes? Easy!
Just go here or here to have a robot monitor this page for you.
This allows you to be assured of knowing about the latest revisions to the program.

Updated to 2.37 12 June 2009 - major revision to toolbars (navigation); Help system accordingly updated

Updated to 2.36 27 May 2009 - added "Quadrant" plate style

Updated to 2.35 16 May 2009 - allow each of the four scales to have their own specifiable font sizes; associated ticmarks have their lengths adjusted accordingly, along with the spacing from ticmark labels to the ticmarks; Help system updated.

Updated to 2.34 15 April 2009 - use fiducials on plate corners instead of lines around plate to show size

Updated to 2.33 19 March 2009 - allow changing Special scale back to Standard scale; corrected inability of virtual/actual offset and bottom-to-bearing to be equal

Updated to 2.32 14 March 2009 - rewrite of graphic-import and highlight routines.

Updated to 2.31 4 January 2009 - added totally-arbitrary scale design capability to the other special scale designs.

Updated to 2.30 16 December 2008 - now use a font-selecting routine to select from most of those fonts that are loaded onto your computer (was formerly only seriff or sans-seriff).

Updated to 2.29 6 August 2008 - major update to add routines to design db, vu, VSWR and S-meter scales with appropriate options.

Updated to 2.28 14 July 2008 - add routine to delete (and restore) individual ticmarks and their labels

Updated to 2.27 12 May 2008 - miscellaneous interface upgrades

Updated to 2.26 11 April 2008 - allow specification of plate background color (was white only)

Updated to 2.25 2 February 2008 - fixed incorrect colors

Updated to 2.24 15 September 2007 - corrected inability of some menubar items to function correctly

Updated to 2.21 11 May 2006 - corrected problem involving saving texts

Updated to 2.20 9 May 2006 - corrected error prohibiting entry of highlights

Updated to 2.19 14 February 2006 - Separate printer-driver routines for the "rotated" and "horizontal" ticmark labels. This generally but not always sidesteps printer idiosyncracies encountered in some printers when they print text on an angle. (Horizontal text prints correctly.)

Updated to 2.18 26 January 2006 - font-size error in 2.17 fixed.

Updated to 2.17 21 January 2006 - a major re-write to allow the ticmark labels to "rotate" about the pointer bearing. Numerous other minor items were upgraded as well.

Updated to 2.16 15 December 2005 - corrected text-position and text on/off errors

Updated to 2.15 8 December 2005 - input error-checking refinement, prohibition of excess printout size which jammed some printers.

Updated to 2.14 28 November 2005 - corrected graphic size and position error, now toggle grid and pointer lines, near total rewrite of Help system.

Updated to 2.13 22 November 2005 - corrected ticmark label vertical position error, "X" exit error.

Updated to 2.12 8 November 2005 - added "toolbar" for quick visually-logical access to common items; corrected printer-cancellation error.

Updated to 2.11 15 October 2005 - added "Highlights"; made Help system resolution-independent.

Updated to 2.10 5 October 2005 - clarified menu item "Print"; fixed error in HPGL file.

Updated to 2.09 22 September 2005 - changed internal items to allow commas for decimal-point specification of text size in those regions affected.

Updated to 2.08 10 September 2005 - output to the printer now uses only half of a sheet of paper. Design data is printed separately (done from the Scales Design page or the Plate Design page).

Updated to 2.07 2 September 2005 - significant upgrade to allow up to five independent text items to be placed on the plate. Each of these has location, color and size separately specificable. Application Note now part of the upgraded Help system

Updated to 2.06 27 August 2005 - make key system Windows-version independent

Updated to 2.05 12 July 2005 - use key file to convert trial version to full version. This conversion method simplifies upgrades from trial to full.

Updated to 2.04 1 November 2004 - save-file (an internal operation) modified for operation in global regions which use a comma for decimal

Updated to 2.03 17 October 2004 - added printer selection box

Updated to 2.02 28 September 2004 - added separate X- and Y-axis printer calibration

Released - 2.01 2 September 2004