Creating Stacked Line Profiles in QGIS

Question

I'm wondering if it is possible to create stacked line profiles, to display either geophysical data collected along a line, or geochemical data also along a line?

Datamine Discover has a feature that allows you to use point data, in this case either geophysical or geochemical data, create a line profile and then display it on the map.

The advantage is it can highlight anomalies as the data lines cross a feature at ~90 degrees.

The Datamine tool allows you to create multiple lines based on multiple attributes, scale the lines, and highlight lines over certain cutoffs (as seen with the blue 'fill' in the below figure).

Obviously Datamine's solution is fairly polished as it is their business, but I was wondering if there was a workaround to have a similar coloured line effect in QGIS?

Answer 1

Assuming you will start loading the data as csv, so that you have a line number (line_no) field to identify each line and a field (id or any of x or y) which is in order.

On 2D map, you can shift the y coordinate of points by the measured value. In QGIS, use Translate tool (Processing Toolbox > Vector geometry) and set the Offset distance (y-values). If the measured value is small, you will need it multiplied by the field calculator (use Edit sub-menu).

It will return a new point layer (Translated). Then connect all translated points by Points to path tool (Processing Toolbox > Vector creation) to produce a line.

[Additional note]

Above workflow will shift the line to the north by the measured value at each vertex. Given your line is NW-SE oriented, it may not be ideal. Please consider shifting both x and y, using trigonometric calculation.