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I am new to QGIS.

How do I make a topo map ( raster) from an Excel file (X,Y UTM)?

Attached is an image since I did not have a better idea how to upload some of the data.

enter image description here

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    Welcome to GIS.SE. What do you need the output to look like? What have you already tried? How did that go?
    – BradHards
    Nov 25, 2013 at 4:35
  • So apparently your data is organized into 10m * 10m sized cells, which have a value (elevation?).
    – til_b
    Nov 25, 2013 at 8:17

1 Answer 1

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If I understand this correctly the yellow fields contain X and Y values, and all the other cells contain some other value like elevation.

If I was you I'd convert the data to a text file following this general pattern:

X-coordinate;Y-coordinate;elevation

You can do this within with a formula like this:

enter image description here

The upper table is my test data, with 11, 22, 33 being my Y-coordinates, aa, bb, bb being my X-Coordinates. Insert the formula =$A2&";"&B$1&";"&B2 in an empty field and auto fill an area equal to your original data. The lower table shows the result, you now have neatly concatenated data. now stack all columns in one long one, either by hand or if there are too many columns by some automated way. Save the single column spreadsheet as CSV or text file.

This is how my resulting test data looks like in any plain text editor:

enter image description here

Now open QGIS and add the .CSV or .TXT as a delimited text layer (Layer > Add delimited text layer).

enter image description here

My test data is nonsensical, so i can't show you, but you should now have layer of point data in front of you. Now you can use Raster > Interpolation to create the desired raster image from this grid of points.


I just noticed that I mixed up the X and Y columns in my example, but I already closed Excel without saving the file. Please adjust the provided formula accordingly if you want to have the X-values in the first column (as it is common): =B$1&";"&$A2&";"&B2.

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  • @Eyal Saiet: Did this work for you?
    – SAnderka
    Nov 26, 2013 at 10:35
  • Hey guys, thanks very much. Except the automated part I had to write in python since I had 103 columns...
    – icypy
    Nov 27, 2013 at 8:49

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