creating contour plots with .txt data

[Kilian Hagemann]

On Wednesday 05 October 2005 09:49, Mark Schuster pondered:
> I was wondering if anybody knows if I could use grads to make a contour
> plot of variables that i have in a regular text file.

Not in grads, unfortunately, at least not directly. You'd have to write your
own python/C/Fortran/whatever program to convert it to one of the binary
formats that grads understands (see the documentation for details, especially
"Structure of a gridded datafile" I think). If you don't know how to do that,
try a software called vcdat or gmt.

Oh, and I'm sure that the source of your data must have somehow converted from
a binary format to the text format you have, so just get the binary files
from your source and try plotting them.

> I have tried doing this with Excel, but Excel
> creates the stupidest looking plot, and my values are averages over a
> 2.5x2.5 degree square, and Excel is interpreting them as being point
> values.

Ha, I moved away from Excel years ago. It's just ugly.

Let me know if you need more information and/or links.

--
Kilian Hagemann

Climate Systems Analysis Group
University of Cape Town
Republic of South Africa
Tel(w): ++27 21 650 2748