= Importing 3D points from Excel to a Shapefile =

Before you start anything you should create a standard heading row for the excel files you create. We used:

{{{
Object_ID, Lat, Long, Alt, Pdate, Locus, Locus2, Square, PointNum, Description
}}}

On importing, ArcInfo prepends the OBJECTID and Id fields and appends the Shape field.

 1. Start ArcMap
 1. Menu: Tools, Add XY Data...
 1. Select the excel file and the sheet the data resides in.
 1. Export the sheet to a shape file. 
 1. Open the shape file in ArcScene - The layer will appear flat, as in not 3D.
 1. Select 3D analyst, Convert, Features to 3D...
 1. Source of heights: Select Input feature attribute and (in our case) Alt
 1. Click OK and then zoom to the new layer added.