Surfer can read uniformly spaced data in matrix format directly as a grid file. To create a grid-based map from matrix data in Surfer:
- Save the matrix data in a TXT, CSV, DAT or FTG file format.
- Click Home | New Map | Contour or the grid-based map type you wish to create.
- In the Open Grid dialog, change the Files of type to TXT Formatted Text Grid.
- Select the data file and click Open.
- If the Select Format dialog appears, select TXT Formatted Text Grid from the list and click OK.
- In the Formatted Text Grid Import Options, select the options that define how the matrix data is organized.
- Click OK and the map is created.
If you are using Surfer 12 or a previous version, you can convert the matrix data to a grid file to use to create a map. You can do this by either converting the matrix data to XYZ data and gridding it, or converting the matrix data directly to a text grid.
Option 1: Converting the matrix to an XYZ data file and gridding the data.
- Download the attached example script Matrix2XYZ.bas.
- Open Scripter, which comes with Surfer, open the script, and click Script | Run to run it. The script converts data in matrix format to data in XYZ format.
- After the data is converted, click Grid | Data in Surfer to grid the data and generate the grid file. I recommend gridding the data using the Nearest Neighbor gridding method, setting the Spacing value to be equal to the spacing in the matrix data file.
Option 2: Converting the matrix directly to a text grid file.
A text grid file has a 5 line header followed by a list of Z values, from left to right, bottom to top. If the grid file is reversed in either the X or Y direction (depending on the data listing in the matrix file), then reverse the grid file so that the X or Y data is going the right direction. To do this:
- Save your data in a text file (e.g. DAT, TXT, CSV, etc).
- Open it in a text editor (like Notepad).
- Remove the header row or header column from the matrix if necessary.
- Add a 5-line header at the very top, so that you just see the 5-line header and a list of Z values. The 5-line header is simply:
- DSAA
- # of lines in X # of lines in Y
- Xmin Xmax
- Ymin Ymax
- Zmin Zmax
- Click File | Save As and save it with a .grd extension (put the name in quotes "testgrid.grd"). This will be in the correct format to create a map.
- If the X or Y data are reversed, click Grid | Calculate | Transform, select the grid file and click Open.
- In the Grid Transform dialog, select either the Mirror X or the Mirror Y as the Operation, and click OK. This is the grid with the data in the correct orientation.
Updated November, 2019
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