distance from us location to canada border

Is there any matlab functionality or tool that allows me to find the minimal distance of a location to the border with canada , having as inputs the zipcode and lat/long of the location?

Answer 1

[Ted Shultz]

I don’t know of a direct function to measure distance from a country, but I did need to do something very similar. This is how I did it:

1) I found a map file that gave the lat/lon of the county of interest. You can find help for Canada here:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/92151-where-can-i-find-data-providing-state-and-province-boundaries-for-mexico-and-canada-respectively-for

2) I interpolated the segments that that no segment was too far apart from each other (“too far apart” is driven by your accuracy requirements). More points = more accurate at short distances

3) I calculated the distance from my input point to all these points using the distance function. The shortest value is your answer.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/map/ref/distance.html

A more elegant solution may be to compare your input point against all the line segments rather than just the points defining your country outline.