And not only that, in many cases they will tell you (if they reply) "oh, we can't find the source of that plot anymore". Happened to me quite a few times (although in physics).
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's written themselves a mini tool to even extract data from a bitmap plot based on the axes. Involves some manual steps (cropping mainly), but is very convenient for the cases where people not even use vector graphics, but sometimes even just screenshots of plots... Do I like it? Hell no! It's why I've put quite some effort in doing it better for my PhD thesis.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's written themselves a mini tool to even extract data from a bitmap plot based on the axes. Involves some manual steps (cropping mainly), but is very convenient for the cases where people not even use vector graphics, but sometimes even just screenshots of plots... Do I like it? Hell no! It's why I've put quite some effort in doing it better for my PhD thesis.