How to make a 2D contour Map

Hello,

I am given a text file with three columns of various lengths. The first column is an 'x' value, the second column is a 'y' value, the third column is a 'z' (heights) value.

My goal is to make a 2D contour map using these three columns of data. The data I have looks a little organised, but they're mostly scattered. I have attached a picture on what it sort of looks like.

Each of those dots have a 'z' (height) value. Below is a sample of data I could have.

X Y Z

10 10 07

10 20 10

20 10 09

20 20 13

13 13 08

15 16 10

The goal is to use those six points for a 2D contour map. Bare in mind that I cannot hard code this. Since next time, I could be given 10 points to work with, or 20, or 50, or even a hundred.

Cheers for your help! I look forward to seeing your solutions.

Answer 1

[Astha Singh]

If you want to obtain the above plot, you can use the scatter function to plot marker points at the corresponding x and y co-ordinates. Also, if you want to add text along with the marker points, you can use the text function.

Please see the below attached code for reference:

x = [10,10,20,20,13,15];
y = [10,20,10,20,13,16];
z = [7,10,9,13,8,10];

Z = num2str(z');
Zf = cellstr(Z);

scatter(x,y,'filled')
text(x+0.1, y+0.1, Zf)

Depending in the format of the input text file, the values of x, y and z can be read, using one the different methods listed in the link below:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/text-files.html

[Darrian Low]

Thank you very much for your help. By any chance would you know how to transform this plot into a 2D contour map?