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Access Basemaps and Terrain for Geographic Globe

Geographic globe objects created using the geoglobe function plot data over basemaps and terrain. You can access different basemap and terrain choices in different ways.

MathWorks® offers a selection of basemaps, including two-tone, color terrain, and high-zoom-level displays. Six of the basemaps are tiled data sets created using Natural Earth. Five of the basemaps are high-zoom-level maps provided by Esri®. For more information about basemap options, see the geobasemap function.

Use Installed Basemap

The "darkwater" basemap is installed with MATLAB®. The other basemaps are not installed with MATLAB, but you can access them over an internet connection.

Download Basemaps

To work offline or to improve map responsiveness, you can download the basemaps created using Natural Earth onto your local system. The basemaps provided by Esri are not available for download.

Download basemaps using the Add-On Explorer.

  1. On the MATLAB Home tab, in the Environment section, click Add-Ons > Get Add-Ons.

  2. In the Add-On Explorer, scroll to the MathWorks Optional Features section, and click Show All to find the basemap add-ons. You can also search for the basemap add-ons by name (listed in the following table) or click Optional Features in Filter by Type.

  3. Select the basemap add-ons that you want to download.

    Basemap NameBasemap Data Package Name
    'bluegreen'MATLAB Basemap Data - bluegreen
    'grayland'MATLAB Basemap Data - grayland
    'colorterrain'MATLAB Basemap Data - colorterrain
    'grayterrain'MATLAB Basemap Data - grayterrain
    'landcover'MATLAB Basemap Data - landcover

Add Custom Basemaps

Add custom basemaps from a URL or an MBTiles file by using the addCustomBasemap function. MATLAB requires an active internet connection to add and use custom basemaps from a URL. MATLAB does not require internet access to add custom basemaps from an MBTiles file.

Access Terrain

By default, the geographic globe uses terrain data hosted by MathWorks and derived from the GMTED2010 model by the USGS and NGA. You need an active internet connection to access this terrain data, and you cannot download it.

To work offline or to improve terrain responsiveness, add custom terrain from DTED files using the addCustomTerrain function. You do not need an active internet connection to add or use custom terrain.

Alternatively, you can set the Terrain property of the geographic globe object to 'none'.

Specify Basemaps and Terrain

To specify a basemap for a geographic globe, you can either:

  • Use the geobasemap function. Specify the geographic globe as the first argument.

    uif = uifigure;
    g = geoglobe(uif);
    geobasemap(g,'streets')

  • Set the Basemap property of the GeographicGlobe object. You can set this property by using a name-value pair or by using dot notation.

    uif = uifigure;
    g = geoglobe(uif,'Basemap','streets');
    g.Basemap = 'topographic';

To specify terrain for the geographic globe, set the Terrain property of the GeographicGlobe object. You can set this property by using a name-value pair or by using dot notation.

uif = uifigure;
g = geoglobe(uif,'Terrain','none');
g.Terrain = 'gmted2010';

See Also

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