Contour map (surface chart) in Excel?

Posted by Dennis on October 20, 2000 2:48 PM

Is it possible to take a series of x y and z coordinates from a topographical survey and have Excel plot them out as a surface chart? I've tried to do this and I can't find enough "help" screens to do the job. (I'm using Excel 97.) There is a help subject titled "Examples of chart types (surface)" that has the kind of graph I'm looking for, but I can't make Excel produce a chart that looks like this.
Thanks for any help you care to offer!

Posted by Ivan Moala on October 23, 2000 12:57 AM

Dennis
Have you used the Chart wizard ??
the chart you are after ?? should be the
surface chart......if you have the 3 co - ord
in 3 columns then charting these should be a
matter of selecting the co-ord and using the wizard
to select this graph.......right clicking on the
graph will give you many options, depending on
where you right click, but one of them is the
3d view....use this to manipulate the way it looks

HTH

Ivan

Posted by Dennis on October 23, 2000 5:44 AM

Thanks for your reply, Ivan, but the chart wizard just doesn't seem to do the trick. I have a grid of x-y (plan) points, and different z (elevation) values for each point. The fact that there is more than one point with x=10 seems to be goofing up the chart wizard. The x y and z axes that are automatically generated don't make sense.
Would it be OK if I e-mail a file directly to you, or would you prefer that I not do this?
Thanks again,
Dennis
dneumann@hdrinc.com

Posted by Ivan Moala on October 23, 2000 7:43 PM

Dennis
Sure thing, email me the file.

Ivan

Posted by j.c. cordoba on November 26, 2000 7:48 AM

I am having the exact same problem. I have values for x, y, z and I cannot make excel take the values for the z axis. The sample graph is also what I am looking for ...but excel does not seem to have options to input the scales for each of the axis...

Thank you for the help in advanced.