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>Given 3 columns of data, columns X, Y, and Z,
>how do I plot a 3 - dimensional surface topology chart?
You don't, not with just XYZ coordinate data.
The Excel Surface chart is analogous to an Excel Line chart, rather
than an Excel XY chart. Here are the differences:
In a Line chart, you give Excel one set of data, and it plots a
curve assuming equally-spaced X values.
In an XY chart, you give Excel two sets of data, X and Y, and it
plots a curve connecting the X,Y coordinate pairs. I generally find
this type of chart the most useful for plotting data curves.
In a Surface chart, you give Excel ONE set of data, just like a Line
chart! Excel assumes that the borders of the table enclosing the
data correspond to X and Y axes, and that the cells in the table are
equally spaced in the X and Y directions. The cell values will be
the Z values for the surface. This is a really crude type of chart
that becomes unreadable if your data table gets so big that the grid
squares all run together.
Excel doesn't have an XYZ chart type, where you can give it three
sets of data representing X, Y, and Z coordinates. You can buy
Excel add-ons for this, if you want.
And don't get me started on polar plots; they suck in Excel too....
--
,|___ Alex Matulich -- alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
// +__> Director of Research and Development
// \
// __) Unicorn Research Corporation -- http://unicorn.us.com
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