I have an ESRI shapefile of the contours of my study area, and I want to convert it into a format that is acceptable by GMT, so I can make an elevation map of my study area. Is that even possible?
Would it be easier, if I had a dem file, to convert it into gmt format?
Edit: I made a .dem file. How can I convert it to GMT acceptable type?
Best Answer
You might as well make a DEM/TIN (using ArcGIS) of the shapefile you have. That will give you the DEM you need to convert to GMT format.
After a quick Google search, I found a couple of links..
convert SRTM30 data to grd
Shapefile to GMT DEM file
Also check the this PDF, mostly after the 15th Page - GMT and Gridded Datasets
There is a clear cut procedure for convering the DEM data to GMT data. Conversion from shapefile to DEM is fairly simple, as you have already achieved it.