Functions That Read and Write Geospatial Data

The following table lists Mapping Toolbox™ functions that read geospatial data products and file formats and write geospatial data files. Note that the geoshow and mapshow functions can read and display both vector and raster geodata files in several formats. Click function names to see their details in the Mapping Toolbox reference documentation. The Type of Coordinates column describes whether the function returns or writes data in geographic ("geo") or projected ("map") coordinates, or as geolocated data grids (which, for the functions listed, all contain geographic coordinates). Some functions can return either geographic or map coordinates, depending on what the file being read contains; these functions do not signify what type of coordinates they return (in the case of shaperead, however, you can specify whether the structure it returns should have X and Y or Lon and Lat fields).

Function	Description	Type of Data	Type of Coordinates
avhrrgoode	Read data products derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and stored in the Goode Homosoline projection: Global Land Cover Classification (GLCC) or Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)	raster	geolocated
avhrrlambert	Read AVHRR GLCC and NDVI data products stored in the Lambert Conformal Conic projection	raster	geolocated
dteds	List DTED data grid file names for a specified latitude-longitude quadrangle	file names	geo
egm96geoid	Read 15-minute gridded geoid heights from the EGM96 geoid model	raster	geo
georasterinfo	Get information about data files in formats such as Esri Binary Grid, Esri GridFloat, DTED, GeoTIFF, and GPX	raster	map geo
geotiffinfo	Get information about GeoTIFF files	properties	map geo
geotiffwrite	Write GeoTIFF file	raster	map geo
getworldfilename	Derive a world file name from an image file name	file name	geo map
globedems	List GLOBE data file names for a specified latitude-longitude quadrangle	file names	geo
gshhs	Read Global Self-Consistent Hierarchical High-Resolution Geography (GSHHG) data	vector	geo
gtopo30s	List GTOPO30 data file names for a specified latitude-longitude quadrangle	file names	geo
kmlwrite	Write vector coordinates and attributes to a file in KML format	vector points and attributes	geo
readgeoraster	Read data in formats such as Esri Binary Grid, Esri GridFloat, DTED, GeoTIFF, and GPX	raster	geo map
readgeotable	Read data in formats such as shapefile, GPX, Esri file geodatabase, KML, and GeoJSON	vector	geo map
shapeinfo	Get information about the geometry and attributes of geographic features stored in a shapefile (a set of ".shp", ".shx" and ".dbf" files)	properties	geo map
shaperead	Read geographic feature coordinates and associated attributes from a shapefile	vector	geo map
shapewrite	Write geospatial data and associated attributes in shapefile format	vector	geo map
usgsdems	List USGS digital elevation model (DEM) file names covering a specified latitude-longitude quadrangle	file names	map
vmap0data	Extract selected data from the Vector Map Level 0 (VMAP0) CD-ROMs	vector	geo
vmap0read	Read a VMAP0 file	vector	geo
vmap0rhead	Read VMAP0 file headers	properties	geo
worldfileread	Read a world file and return a referencing matrix	georeferencing information	geo
worldfilewrite	Export a referencing matrix into an equivalent world file	georeferencing information	geo

The MATLAB^® environment provides many general file reading and writing functions (for example, imread, imwrite, urlread, and urlwrite) which you can use to access geospatial data you want to use with Mapping Toolbox software. For example, you can read a TIFF image with imread and its accompanying world file with worldfileread to import the image and construct a referencing matrix to georeference it. See the Mapping Toolbox example Georeference an Image to an Orthotile Base Layer for an example of how you can do this.

Related Topics

• Supported Geospatial File Formats for Import and Export