Import a txt file with Latitude in first colum, Longitute in second, and value in 3?

[BojanaBajzelj]

I would really appreciate your help on this problem: I am quite a beginner, with no programming skills and limited GIS experience.

I have an ASCII/ Text file with 2 columns:
first one states latitude, second longitude and last the value in that point.
I would like to add this data to ArcMap 10 either as raster or points.

Since the file is not in ASCII format that wuold state number of columns and rows and than values in that grid, I can not work it out. Many thanks!

Bojana

[EricRice]

Bojana,

There are many options for you. Given your description of the data you can only create points from it for now.  Once you have the points you can directly convert those points to raster, or interpolate a new surface from the points.

Please read the documentation for each method below.  You will have to have 3 columns in your file if you want a PointZ feature class. e.g. X, Y, Z.  The first two  methods only require an X and a Y field though.

1. In ArcMap, Click File > Add Data > Add XY Data.  (Adding x,y coordinate data as a layer)
2. Run the Make XY Event Layer geoprocessing tool.
3. Potentially, you can use the ASCII 3D to Feature Class tool available in 3D Analyst.

Regards,
Eric

[BojanaBajzelj]

Thank you very much Eric!
The first method works - i almost feel silly now.
Bojana 🙂