Version 2.1 (R14SP2) Mapping Toolbox™ Software Release Notes

Version 2.1 (R14SP2) Mapping Toolbox™ Software

This table summarizes what's new in Version 2.1 (R14SP2):

New features and changes introduced in this version are

• New Function Reads Both 5-Minute and 2-Minute ETOPO Data

• Function gshhs Now Returns a Version 2 Geostruct

• Geodata Can Now Be Exported in Shapefile Format

• Accessing Geodata Resources on the Internet

• Compatibility Considerations for Atlas Data and Associated Functions

• Compatibility Considerations for worldmap and usamap

• Data Files Added in This Release

• Atlas Data MAT-Files Removed in This Release

• Functions Deleted in This Release

• Functions Made Obsolete in This Release

New Function Reads Both 5-Minute and 2-Minute ETOPO Data

The new function etopo reads from either the 5-minute (ETOPO5) or the 2-minute (ETOPO2) global terrain data set. This function supersedes function etopo5 and fixes several significant bugs.

Function gshhs Now Returns a Version 2 Geostruct

Function gshhs, which reads the Global Self-consistent Hierarchical High-resolution Shoreline data set, has been upgraded. It now returns a Version 2 geographic data structure (geostruct2) array instead of a Version 1 geostruct. Polygons returned from gshhs now follow the shapefile vertex-ordering convention (supported by functions polybool, shaperead, and shapewrite, for example). Under this convention the coordinates of outer rings (e.g., continent outlines) are given in clockwise order, while counterclockwise ordering is used for inner rings (e.g., lakes and inland seas within a continent). Note that function gshhs does not yet support Version 1.3 of the data set, released on Sept. 27, 2004.

Geodata Can Now Be Exported in Shapefile Format

The new function shapewrite writes a geographic data structure to a shapefile. It exports a Version 2 geographic data structure array (geostruct2), creating .shp, .shx, and .dbf files. Like shaperead, the function supports the Point, MultiPoint, PolyLine, and Polygon shape types. The contents of string-valued attribute fields and scalar numerical attribute fields are written to the dBase (.dbf) file.

Accessing Geodata Resources on the Internet

Links and URLs to documentation and data files for various Internet sources of digital map data are now collected in the following technical note on the MathWorks Web site:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes/2100/2101.html

This technical note replaces many individual links formerly scattered across the User's Guide, reference pages, and M-file help. Collecting this information on a Web page rather than on product CDs or printed documentation should substantially mitigate recurrent problems with stale links. Please report any stale links that you might find in the technical note to MathWorks Technical Support (http://www.mathworks.com/contact_TS.html), so that it can be updated promptly.

Compatibility Considerations for Atlas Data and Associated Functions

Through Version 2.0.3, the toolbox included a set of atlas data with global geopolitical data embedded as MATLAB^® arrays in four MAT-files: worldlo, worldhi, worldmtx, and worldmtxmed. However, geopolitical data is difficult to keep current, and is subject to inaccuracies and interpretations that can cause contention. Therefore, starting with Version 2.1, Mapping Toolbox™ demo data now excludes geopolitical data that would specify national sovereignty over specific regions of the Earth. The only exceptions are the boundaries of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

This change means that the worldlo, worldhi, worldmtx, and worldmtxmed MAT-files are no longer part of the toolbox. However, the nonpolitical data on global coastlines, major lakes and inland seas, major rivers, and major cities and populated places that was in worldlo.mat has been retained in the toolbox and transformed into shapefile format. This includes the addition of name attributes for many previously unnamed features. There are four new shapefiles in this category: landareas.shp, worldlakes.shp, worldrivers.shp, and worldcities.shp.

For consistency, the atlas data for the United States that was originally stored in the usalo and usahi MAT-files has also been transformed, although none has been removed. These data sets now reside in the following shapefiles and MAT-files: usastatelo.shp, usastatehi.shp, conus.mat, and greatlakes.mat.

The toolbox originally included four functions dedicated to extracting data from the atlas data MAT-files: worldlo, worldhi, usalo, and usahi. With the data removal/transformation described above, these functions are no longer needed and have been removed from the toolbox in Version 2.1. You can easily access the new shapefiles using the shaperead function, which includes powerful and flexible options for selecting features and even controlling which attributes are read. In addition, function country2mtx, whose sole purpose was to rasterize the country boundary polygons in worldlo.mat, has been removed.

Related changes extend to the worldmap function, which formerly combined two purposes:

• Select an appropriate map projection and parameters with which to display a given latitude-longitude area.

• Automatically display atlas data for that area.

In Version 2.1, worldmap supports only the first of these actions. A call to worldmap constructs a map axes object and can easily be followed with a variety of Mapping Toolbox commands to display the map data of your choice. Because the usamap function is so similar to worldmap, corresponding changes have been made there as well.

To help those who have relied heavily on worldmap and usamap to plot base maps with automatically selected vector map data, examples throughout the User's Guide, reference pages, and M-file Help entries have been updated to illustrate the new behavior of worldmap and usamap, and to show how to create maps including vector shapefile data layers. These examples cover a wide variety of ways to read and subset data with shaperead and display data with geoshow and other Mapping Toolbox display functions. A good place to start is with the examples for the worldmap and usamap functions. Also see example code in Changes to worldmap and usamap Display Types.

To help you update commands, scripts, and data for constructing and maintaining base maps, a recently published technical note on the MathWorks Web site provides links to data and documentation for many sources of vector and raster digital map data that you can access over the Internet:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes/2100/2101.html

Compatibility Considerations for worldmap and usamap

worldmap and usamap have been simplified to construct appropriate map axes for a given area without displaying any map data.

In all cases, map frames, latitude-longitude grid lines, meridian labels, and parallel labels are turned on. You can use the following command sequence to remove them:

 framem off; gridm off; mlabel off; plabel off

Other changes include the following:

• usamap now accepts two-letter U.S. Postal Service abbreviations for state names (e.g., AL, AK, AR, etc.).

• The following input options are now obsolete (if used, a warning is issued):

  • A first argument equal to 'lo' or 'hi'

  • The regiononly and stateonly syntax: a state or country name with the string 'only' appended

  • All type options: 'none', 'line', 'lineonly', 'patch', 'patchonly', 'mesh', 'meshonly', 'dem', 'demonly', 'dem3d', 'dem3donly', 'lmesh3d', 'lmesh3donly', 'ldem3d', and 'ldem3donly' (the new behavior matches the 'none' option)

Changes to worldmap and usamap Display Types

As of this release, the worldmap and usamap functions no longer supports the type input argument. This argument provided an easy way to control display behavior.

The type option in worldmap was a single argument that could be one of the following strings: 'none', 'line', 'lineonly', 'patch', 'patchonly', 'mesh', 'meshonly', 'dem', 'demonly', 'dem3d', 'dem3donly', 'lmesh3d', 'lmesh3donly', 'ldem3d', and 'ldem3donly'. In usamap, type was a subset of the above names (the 3-D options were not supported).

In the current release, the various type display options can be simulated by following a call to worldmap or usamap with an appropriate set of Mapping Toolbox commands. The following table specifies how you can achieve the effects of the old worldmap type argument using such auxiliary methods:

Data Files Added in This Release

The following files were added to the mapdemos directory, for use in toolbox demos and examples:

• landareas — Polygon shapefile: global coastlines, both exterior and interior, including names for larger land masses

• worldlakes — Polygon shapefile: coastlines and names of major lakes and inland seas worldwide

• worldrivers — PolyLine shapefile: major world rivers and their names

• worldcities — Point shapefile: locations and names of major cities and populated places worldwide

• usastatelo — Polygon shapefile: low-resolution outlines and names of the 50 U.S. states plus D.C.

• usastatehi — Polygon shapefile: moderate-resolution outlines and names of the 50 U.S. states plus D.C.

• conus — MAT-file: Low-resolution latitudes and longitudes, in degrees, for the perimeter of the conterminous United States (CONUS), the Great Lakes, and interstate borders

• greatlakes — MAT-file: A Version 1 geographic data structure (geostruct1) with outlines and names for the Great Lakes of North America

Atlas Data MAT-Files Removed in This Release

MAT-files containing Atlas Data have been removed in Version 2.1. Some of the data has been retained in a different form. The disposition of these data sets and variables is described below.

World MAT-File Data

• worldlo.mat, which contained the following variables:

  • DNline — Data moved to worldrivers.shp

  • DNpatch — Data moved to worldlakes.shp

  • POline — Data removed from toolbox

  • POtext — Data removed from toolbox

  • PPpoint — Data moved to worldcities.shp

  • PPtext — Data moved to worldcities.shp

  • gazette — Data removed from toolbox

• worldhi.mat — Data removed from toolbox

• worldmtx.mat — Data removed from toolbox

• worldmtxmed.mat — Data removed from toolbox

United States MAT-File Data

• usalo.mat, which contained the following variables (all retained):

  • conus — Data moved to conus.mat

  • greatlakes — Data moved to greatlakes.mat

  • gtlakelat — Data moved to conus.mat

  • gtlakelon — Data moved to conus.mat

  • state — Data moved to usastatelo.shp

  • stateborder — Data moved to conus.mat

  • statelat — Data moved to conus.mat

  • statelon — Data moved to conus.mat

  • uslat — Data moved to conus.mat

  • uslon — Data moved to conus.mat

• usahi.mat — Data moved to usastatehi.shp

Functions Deleted in This Release

The following functions, which performed specific operations on Atlas Data sets, have been removed in Version 2.1:

• country2mtx — Create a raster map grid of a country from worldlo atlas data

• usahi — Return high-resolution vector atlas data for the United States

• usalo — Return vector atlas data for the United States

• worldhi — Return high-resolution vector atlas data for the world

• worldlo — Return vector atlas data for the world or oceans

Functions Made Obsolete in This Release

• etopo5 — Replaced by etopo. Use etopo instead.

• tigerp — Download U.S. Census cartographic boundary files in shapefile format and use shaperead instead.

• tigermif — Download U.S. Census cartographic boundary files in shapefile format and use shaperead instead.

Version 2.2 (R14SP3) Mapping Toolbox™ Software

Version 2.0.3 (R14SP1) Mapping Toolbox™ Software