.XYZ Files in QGIS

Here's a quick tip that I found recently that might save you some time.

When looking for DEMs of real world places you might come across a file format with
.xyz extension. Which is basically a table with coordinates for every point in a point cloud.

Note how the X values changes in increments
of two. Telltale sign of a 2 meter resolution DEM.

In our case, we want to read this data as if it were a heightfield texture. There are ways to import the file as a tabular data in QGIS and then convert it to a heightfield, but this process can be surprisingly long, several hours worth. And this is the approach you will find when looking in google for convertion options.

I won't go into detail about those methods because there is a much simpler way.

The layers panel, highlighted in red in QGIS UI.

The file is interpreted as a raster image automatically.

Just drag and drop the .xyz file into the layers panel. That's it. Might be obivous to geographers and other professionals that use GQIS as their bread and butter but hopefully this tip will save you hours fiddling with TIN Interpolation settings and encourage experimentation with point cloud data from cool scenery around the world.


See you next mission.