I presume you refer to data, which I would call 2D? So z is the value you want to modify? If this is the case you may want to test Surfer (Golden Software). There you can load the grd file directly (so not as a contour map) . In this somewhat crude view you can edit each z-value manually. However, this requires a gridded data set (equal spaced). Regards Wolfram

Hi Wolfram,

yeah, I know this creepy Surfer feature. I tested this previously, but this tool suffer, as you mentioned, from the need of a gridded (equally spaced) data set. Moreover, I was hopping to find a tool which is more intuitive to use (allowing to modify specific points visually by mouse drag and drop).

Thanks and regards, Sven

Try Rhoni3D it has a 90 days evaluation period of the full version. I was impressed by the features. http://www.rhino3d.com/de/download

You could try 3D modeling and sculpting softwares such as blender (http://www.blender.org/) or sculptris (http://pixologic.com/sculptris/). Notice that these are software that do computer assisted 3D drawing. You won't change the value pixel by pixel. You'll draw (mouse pull and push) directly so it wont be exact.

Blender is free and open-source. Sculptris is just free. They can open a few file formats. Depending if the file you have is on those formats (.obj for example) or not you may have to parse the file.

If you do need to parse the file you may easily use Python/Mayavi package to do it.

I hope it helps.

Thanks to both of you!

To me, Rhinoceros seems a good system for this. It is primarily a CAD 3D modelling software. It focuses on NURBS geometry, but has support for polygonal meshes.

You could also look at ZBrush (the professional version of Sculptris) or Mudbox if you want to do something more akin to clay sculpting with digital mesh models.

Or are you talking about point clouds? (xyz points, without surface)