Unfortunately, three columns of X-Y-Z data will not produce a useful
surface chart. Surface and contour charts have severe limitations,
especially for this case, the X and Y (lat and long) must be presented
in a uniform regular array:

Y1 Y2 Y3 ...
X1 Z11 Z12 Z13
X2 Z21 Z22 Z23
X3 Z31 Z32 Z33
....

See http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=447 for
more about contour and surface charts.

I'm sure the measurements are likely to be located at positions which
are convenient to measure, not convenient to plot. Therefore you would
need to convert distance and bearing (R-theta) measurements to lat-long
(X-Y) measurements, then interpolate the measured smoke concentrations
onto the regular grid to be plotted.

There have been some efforts to build 3D XYZ charts in Excel; for
example check out Andy Pope's 3D Scatter Chart at http://andypope.info.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

Phil Preen wrote:

Select your three data columns, start the chart wizard and choose the Surface
chart type.