surfm
Project geolocated data grid on map axes
Syntax
surfm(lat,lon,Z)
surfm(latlim,lonlim,Z)
surfm(lat,lon,Z,alt)
surfm(...,prop1,val1,prop2,val2,...)
h = surfm(...)
Description
surfm(lat,lon,Z) constructs
a surface to represent the data grid Z in the current
map axes. The surface lies flat in the horizontal plane with its CData property
set to Z. The 2-D arrays or vectors lat and lon define
the latitude-longitude graticule mesh on which Z is
displayed. The sizes and shapes of lat and lon affect
their interpretation, and also determine whether the default FaceColor property
of the surface is 'flat' or 'texturemap'.
There are three options:
2-D arrays (matrices) having the same size as
Z.Latandlonare treated as geolocation arrays specifying the precise location of each vertex.FaceColoris'flat'.2-D arrays having a different size than
Z. The arrayslatandlondefine a graticule mesh that might be either larger or smaller thanZ.Latandlonmust match each other in size.FaceColoris'texturemap'.Vectors having more than two elements. The elements of
latandlonare repeated to form a graticule mesh with size equal tonumel(lat)-by-numel(lon).FaceColoris'flat'if the graticule mesh matchesZin size. Otherwise,FaceColoris'texturemap'.
surfm clears the current map if the hold
state is 'off'.
surfm(latlim,lonlim,Z) defines the graticule
using the latitude and longitude limits latlim and lonlim,
which should match the geographic extent of the data grid Z. Latlim is
a two-element vector of the form:
[southern_limit northern_limit]
Likewise lonlim has the form:
[western_limit eastern_limit]
A latitude-longitude graticule is constructed to match Z in
size. The surface FaceColor property is 'flat' by
default.
surfm(lat,lon,Z,alt) sets
the ZData property of the surface to 'alt',
resulting in a 3-D surface. lat and lon must
result in a graticule mesh that matches alt in
size. CData is set to Z. The FaceColor property
is 'texturemap', unless Z matches alt in
size, in which case it is 'flat'.
surfm(...,prop1,val1,prop2,val2,...) applies
additional MATLAB® graphics properties to the surface via property/value
pairs. You can specify any property accepted by the surface function
except XData, YData, and ZData.
h = surfm(...) returns a
handle to the surface object.
Examples
Load elevation raster data and a geographic cells reference object. Then, display the data as a surface.
load topo60c axesm miller axis off framem on gridm on [lat,lon] = meshgrat(topo60c,topo60cR,[90 180]); surfm(lat,lon,topo60c) demcmap(topo60c)
Tips
This function warps a data grid to a graticule mesh, which is
projected according to the map axes property MapProjection.
The fineness, or resolution, of this grid determines the quality of
the projection and the speed of plotting it. There is no hard and
fast rule for sufficient graticule resolution, but in general, cylindrical
projections need very few graticule points in the longitudinal direction,
while complex curve-generating projections require more.