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How to visualize grd files in the software QGIS?

7 Answers 7

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There are at least two formats with .grd/.gri extension. One is Golden Software grid - GDAL can easily handle it, so simply open it through Add Raster Layer, as Didier Blavet suggested.

But there is also DIVA-GIS grid format. I found a maillist entry saying that only DIVA-GIS can open it. So you have basically two options: you can get and install DIVA, open the data in it and save them in a different format. Or you can find the same data in a different format. For example, elevation data provided in DIVA grid format on DIVA website are the same as those on SRTM.

Big thanks to Goyo from OSGeo community, 99% of my post is derived from what he wrote!

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  • I justed tested with the Togo landuse map, and the ZIP file included a .vrt file as well. Use that to open the map in GRASS GIS, QGIS, etc since they read the .vrt file via GDAL.
    – markusN
    Commented Oct 24, 2016 at 20:07
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i think that you can visualize a grd file (ie a grid file) as a raster layer. if you try the menu layer add raster then you will fin several types of grid files. i my case i opened golden software grid (with extension grd) with this menu. After that if the file can be opened you can change the colors, choose a transparent color etc ... best regards

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  • There are several (slightly?) different formats with .grd extension, and QGIS can open only some of these. I don't know which format exactly is on Diva GIS, but I can't open it this way, as well as the guy who asked another question on this topic.
    – Pavel V.
    Commented Apr 15, 2014 at 17:51
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I have stumbled on this set of question and answers because I have been handed a data set from 2004 that has the 'grd extension. QGIS 2.14.4 has not been able to open them through the usual GDAL magic. I was able to open them by changing the file extension to .csv and importing as a text layer and as a spreadsheet layer. So I'm just adding to the the answers.

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Some .grd files are actually netCDF array data, typically created by GMT. Import of netCDF have been discussed here earlier. Sometimes, the cell order is reversed and needs to be flipped or transposed. Some plugins wouldn't recognise .grd files, but just saving the ending to .nc can help.

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I'm working with mag data from the USGS right now and it came in this format. I was able to open the files with Geosoft Viewer and convert them to GeoTIFFs, there are some other formats that Geosoft Viewer can output if you have other requirements. I know qgis can open .ers files as well, that is an option for exporting.

Geosoft viewer is available at https://www.geosoft.com/products/geosoft-viewer. This is also discussed in a thread at http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Geosoft-Grid-Files-td5278481.html. They suggest that .gxf may also be an option for exporting.

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The data that you can download from DIVA GIS has a .vrt file which can be open with QGIS

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You can use the QGIS plugin grd_loader for this:

grd_loader plugin

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