Download DISTANCE USER'S GUIDE

OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
How to Start DISTANCE
If you want to start DISTANCE from any disk drive and directory, place YourDirectory
in the computer's PATH statement (e.g. SET PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\YourDirectory). Then simply
enter:
DIST
to start the program. If
entering:
YourDirectory is not included in your PATH, start DISTANCE by
YourDirectory\DIST
YourDirectory is the directory in which you installed DIST.EXE or change to
YourDirectory (CD \YourDirectory) prior to issuing the DIST command. Either of the above
commands runs DISTANCE interactively. DISTANCE displays a title screen and the DISTANCE>
where
prompt on the screen. DISTANCE is ready for you to enter commands and data from the keyboard.
Alternatively, DISTANCE can read commands and data entered into text files with an editor (e.g.,
EDIT) or saved from within DISTANCE (see the ASSIGN and STORE commands described later).
The latter approach, which eliminates redundant entry of commands and data, is described under
Batch Operation and the ASSIGN command. Until you become familiar with DISTANCE, we
recommend entering commands and data interactively.
A Simple Example
DISTANCE needs three types of information to perform an analysis:
1) OPTIONS - defines the type of sampling and data, measurement units, and various other settings
which affect data entry and analysis,
2) DATA - defines the sampling structure (strata & samples), sampling effort (e.g., line length), and
appropriate observation data (i.e., distance and cluster size), and
3) ESTIMATE - defines the parameters to be estimated, how the data are to be treated in the
analysis, which estimators are to be used, and how variances are to be estimated.
This information is entered via commands that define option values, structure data input, and
initiate and control estimation. Reasonable default values have been chosen for many of the options.
Figure 1 on the next page gives an example of command and data input, which are organized
into sections (procedures) corresponding to the type of information. For this example, the Options
section defines:
1) line transect sampling was used,
2) line length is measured in miles,
3) density is to be expressed in numbers per hectare, and
4) distance (perpendicular) is measured in intervals of 1 foot to a maximum distance (width)
of 4 feet.
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