Creating DEM from contours in QGIS?

I have a shapefile with contours and their heights.

Is it possible to make a DEM from contours in QGIS without using GRASS?

I found Creating DEM from contours using ArcGIS Desktop? but the answer is for ArcGIS Desktop.

Answer

Yes, there are several options available in QGIS:

1. Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) Interpolation plugin - see this for a tutorial (archived from the original).


2. GDAL Raster plugin - to access, click Raster > Grid (Interpolation). GDAL's interpolation is more robust because you can use other interpolation algorithms (IDW, nearest neighbor, moving average, etc.). This tools only works for point data.


3. GRASS GIS Plugin - there are several modules you can use (v.surf.* and r.surf.*). You need convert your shapefile into a GRASS database to use the GRASS modules in QGIS.