Importing 3D points from Excel to a Shapefile
Before you start anything you should create a standard heading row for the excel files you create. We used:
Object_ID, Lat, Long, Alt, Pdate, Locus, Locus2, Square, PointNum, Description
On importing, ArcInfo prepends the OBJECTID and Id fields and appends the Shape field.
Start ArcMap
- Menu: Tools, Add XY Data...
- Select the excel file and the sheet the data resides in.
- Export the sheet to a shape file.
Open the shape file in ArcScene - The layer will appear flat, as in not 3D.
- Select 3D analyst, Convert, Features to 3D...
- Source of heights: Select Input feature attribute and (in our case) Alt
- Click OK and then zoom to the new layer added.