19th March 2009, 08:30 PM
Aha, I've been fiddling with the same issue for the thesis. The quick and effective approach has already been outlined pretty much above.
Surfer is the easiest, X,Y coordinates with Z values being geochemistry values or whatever you want. Sigmaplot also does decent contour plots.
You then import/export the Surfer output into GIS as a raster based on the coordinates, overlaying your various 'contour maps' onto whatever you want, section drawing/photo/geology map etc.
For super tech, matlab handles gridded data very well but requires you programming some code, is expensive etc etc.
I'd be very interested in how you get on. I need to find useful methods for disseminating my findings and archiving my data with the ADS and this one looked promising.
Surfer is the easiest, X,Y coordinates with Z values being geochemistry values or whatever you want. Sigmaplot also does decent contour plots.
You then import/export the Surfer output into GIS as a raster based on the coordinates, overlaying your various 'contour maps' onto whatever you want, section drawing/photo/geology map etc.
For super tech, matlab handles gridded data very well but requires you programming some code, is expensive etc etc.
I'd be very interested in how you get on. I need to find useful methods for disseminating my findings and archiving my data with the ADS and this one looked promising.