Importing .xyz Data Files

Hi,

I am having trouble with importing an .xyz data file I got from a 3D laser scanner. MATLAB didn't support the ".xyz" file extension, so I had to convert it to a ".txt" file. After I did this, I got rid of irrelevant text, which obviously couldn't be put into an Nx3 matrix. Anyway, when I try to import this file it comes up with the following error:

> importdata('LS_scan.txt')
  Warning: An unexpected format mismatch was detected.
  Please check results against original file. 
  > In importdata>parse at 485
    In importdata>LocalTextRead at 267
    In importdata at 210
    In LS_nov19 at 7

I am not sure what went wrong. Can somebody help me? My goal is to see the data read as an Nx3 matrix, which I can use to separate into x, y, and z columns of data.

If you need more information on the error posted, please let me know and I will provide it.

Thank you

[Sven]

What does the contents of your file look like? All we know is:

1. It used to have an .xyz extension

2. It now has a .txt extension

3. It now has some things deleted

None of those things show us what the actual contents of the file are... and the contents of the file is the single most important piece of information.

[Ian Wood]

My apologies. The file consists mostly of floating point numbers. Three of them, with a space in between each in each row. This is done for thousands of rows. Occasionally, there is a single integer between some of these rows. Maybe this will help clarify:

0

-49.338 516.802 963.547

-49.715 516.804 963.468

-50.092 516.805 963.383

.

.

1

174.914 517.007 963.776

174.150 517.005 963.845

Answer 1

[Michael]

I think the first line of your text file should be in the same format as the data; in your example the first row is a single zero which matlab would read, and deduce that there is only one column.

[Ian Wood]

Yup that fixed that problem. Thanks!

Answer 2

[Ian Wood]

I'm getting the data to output in the proper data type now, with the proper number of rows, but for some reason the command reads one fewer column.

Answer 3

[sachini dehigaspitiya]

Price per Unit (Rs/Wh) Time of Operation for DR event (min) Consumed Watt at ON mode (Watt) 2.25 60 75 2.975 45 85 4 30 100 4.5 40 100 4.6 30 115 5.175 40 115 8.1 30 180

i want to draw this data in to XYZ plot (3D plot)

Answer 4

[Duarte Guerreiro]

Hello, Ian,

I am having the same problem. Could you share the script you used to import the data?

Thank you,

Duarte