Extract text from SRTM elevation data files (HGT)
To convert HGT elevation files to another format, you need QGIS or other GIS software.
To convert other file formats to the "Elevation Data File" file type, you need software like QGIS or a similar tool.
The .HGT file format stores high-resolution digital elevation models (DEM) gathered by the joint NASA and NGA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). These files represent geographical terrain heights on a continuous grid. They are heavily utilized by geologists, game developers, and GIS professionals to reconstruct accurate 3D landscapes based on real-world topography.
Specialized Geographic Information System (GIS) tools like QGIS and ArcGIS are the standard software used to open and process .HGT files. For developers and command-line users, the GDAL library is the industry standard for reading, manipulating, and exporting these datasets. Information about the format can be found on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Wikipedia page.
The primary disadvantage of the .HGT format is its raw, headerless structure. Standard image viewers, web browsers, and text editors will fail to open it because the file lacks structural metadata and relies entirely on its strict file dimensions and its exact filename (e.g., N45E010.hgt) to declare its geographic coordinates. Furthermore, the raw 16-bit signed integer format requires dedicated geospatial software to visualize correctly, making it inaccessible to the average user.
To make terrain data usable in modern 3D software or standard viewers, you must convert it. Converting .HGT to TIF (GeoTIFF) is the best choice for retaining geospatial metadata and elevation accuracy. For game engines like Unity or Unreal, converting to a 16-bit grayscale PNG heightmap is ideal. For raw data parsing in custom scripts, converting to an ASC (Esri ASCII) file offers human-readable text grids.
This file format is exceptionally difficult to open or convert without dedicated GIS software because .HGT files are strict, proprietary-style raw data arrays. Traditional online document converters consistently fail to process them. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your HGT file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted ZIP, TIF, PNG, DEM, SVP, P7S, XAPK, CRDOWNLOAD and TIFF files.
If you want to convert HGT file to TIFF, DEM, PNG, SHP, KML, KMZ, GPX, GEOJSON, TOPOJSON, TIF, ECW or SID, you can use QGIS or similar software from the "Digital Elevation Model Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert LAZ, KMZ, DTM, CSV, DEM, PRJ, LAS, GPX, DSM, SHP, DBF or KML files to HGT, try QGIS or another comparable tool in the "Digital Elevation Model Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our HGT converter.