xyzread documentation
The xyzread function simply imports the x,y,z columns of a .xyz file. Note: there is no real standard for .xyz files, so your .xyz file may be different from the .xyz files I wrote this for. I wrote this one for GMT/GIS files. See also xyz2grid.
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Contents
Syntax
[x,y,z] = xyzread(filename) [x,y,z] = xyzread(filename,Name,Value)
Description
[x,y,z] = xyzread(filename) imports the columns of a plain .xyz file.
[x,y,z] = xyzread(filename,Name,Value) accepts any textscan arguments such as 'headerlines' etc.
Example
For this example, use load Antarctic Curie depth data from Martos 2017:
[x,y,z] = xyzread('Curie_Depth.xyz');
The syntax above is equivalent to
[x,y,z] = xyzread('Curie_Depth.xyz','headerlines',0);
because this particular xyz file does not have any header lines.
We have now loaded the data into Matlab and it looks like this:
whos
Name Size Bytes Class Attributes x 59328x1 474624 double y 59328x1 474624 double z 59328x1 474624 double
We have three variables, each 59328x1 in size. Here are the x,y coordinates plotted as dots:
plot(x,y,'.')
At this zoom level, that looks like a solid continent, but only because the ~60,000 dots are all squished together. Zoom in closer to see the regularity of the grid:
axis([-2 -0.5 -1.3 .2]*1e6)
Those dots are regularly spaced in x and y, but getting them into a regular grid in Matlab is kind of a noodle scratcher. Fortunately, xyz2grid makes it easy!
[X,Y,Z] = xyz2grid(x,y,z); whos X Y Z
Name Size Bytes Class Attributes X 291x350 814800 double Y 291x350 814800 double Z 291x350 814800 double
Now those 59328x1 arrays have been neatly packed into 291x350 grids which can be plotted with pcolor:
pcolor(X,Y,Z)
shading flat
Author Info
This function is part of the Climate Data Toolbox for Matlab. The function and supporting documentation were written by Chad A. Greene of the University of Texas at Austin.