How to label raster cells using ArcGIS Desktop or QGIS?

Question

I want to generate a small sample raster (eg. euclidean distance or cost distance) to explain the method of cost-distance analysis, and I'd like to label the pixels with the corresponding cost-value.

I already tried to lay a fishnet over the raster in ArcGIS, but I didn't find a good way to copy the values into the attribute table.

Answer 1

1. Convert your raster to points with ArcGIS Raster To Point Tool
2. Label the point layer. Use a transparent symbol for your point layer.

Answer 2

In QGIS you could use gdal2xyz to make a text file containing xyz triplets:

gdal2xyz.py raster.xxx textfile.txt

This will produce a space-delimited text file that can be imported to QGIS as points.