MATLAB: How to plot Earth (wgs84 Ellipsoid)

3dplottingwgs84

I have tried

[x,y,z] = wgs84Ellipsoid('meters');
figure
surf(x,y,z)
axis equal

However,

[x,y,z] = wgs84Ellipsoid('meters');

is incorrect ("Too many output arguments")

Best Answer

To just get a sense for the shape of the ellipsoid, you could use the values from the wgs84ellipsoid in conjunction with MATLAB's ellipsoid function as follows:

 ellipsoid(0,0,0,E.SemimajorAxis, E.SemimajorAxis, E.SemiminorAxis)

Alternatively, if you want a 3D globe, you could follow the doc example here:

 https://www.mathworks.com/help/map/examples/plotting-a-3-d-dome-as-a-mesh-over-a-globe.html

Replacing the grs80 ellipsoid with the one returned by wgs84Ellipsoid.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to plot Earth and drape a mesh with elevation data over it

Dear future reader, this is the solution I found:

Earth = wgs84Ellipsoid;
axesm('globe','Grid','on','GlineStyle','-','Geoid',Earth)
view(3)
axis off
load topo
topo = topo / (1e-2); % The elevation can be exaggerated here 
meshm(topo,topolegend,size(topo),topo);
demcmap(topo)

MATLAB: Do the UTM WGS84 calculations not match what MATLAB has calculated

This difference occurs because MATLAB’s default reference ellipsoid is "International", not "WGS 84"

Although people often use UTM with WGS 84, UTM was originally specified to work the various ellipsoids in different parts of the world, and the toolbox honors this specification.

The following code is accurate to within a few centimeters.

mUtm=defaultm('utm');
mUtm.zone = '35T';
mUtm.geoid = almanac('earth','wgs84','meters');
mUtm=defaultm(mUtm);
[eastutm2,northutm2]=mfwdtran(mUtm,44.3536,28.4981);
%default values taken from manual lat -> UTM conversion
diffnorth2=4912239-northutm2
diffeast2=619393.56-eastutm2
% Perform inverse mapping to verify lat and lon
[lat, lon] = minvtran(mUtm, eastutm2,northutm2)

Note that starting in MATLAB 7.14 (R2012a), it is recommended to use the wgs84Ellipsoid function instead of almanac . To do so, replace the line containing the almanac function with the following:

mUtm.geoid = wgs84Ellipsoid('meters');

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to plot Earth and drape a mesh with elevation data over it

MATLAB: Do the UTM WGS84 calculations not match what MATLAB has calculated

Related Question