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histr

Histogram for geographic points with equirectangular bins

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Syntax

[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons)
[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons,units)
[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons,bindensty)

Description

[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons) returns the center coordinates of equal-rectangular bins and the number of observations, num, falling in each based on the geographically distributed input data. Additionally, an area-weighted observation value, wnum, is returned. wnum is the bin's num divided by its normalized area. The largest bin has the same num and wnum; a smaller bin has a larger wnum than num.

[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons,units) where units specifies the angle unit. The default value is 'degrees'.

[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons,bindensty) sets the number of bins per angular unit. For example, if units is 'degrees', a bindensty of 10 would be 10 bins per degree of latitude or longitude, resulting in 100 bins per square degree. The default is one cell per angular unit.

The histr function sorts geographic data into equirectangular bins for histogram purposes. Equirectangular in this context means that each bin has the same angular measurement on each side (e.g., 1º-by-1º). Consequently, the result is not an equal-area histogram. The hista function provides that capability. However, the results of histr can be weighted by their area bias to correct for this, in some sense.

Examples

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Open Live Script

Create some random latitudes.

rng(0,'twister')
lats = rand(4)
lats = 4×4

    0.8147    0.6324    0.9575    0.9572
    0.9058    0.0975    0.9649    0.4854
    0.1270    0.2785    0.1576    0.8003
    0.9134    0.5469    0.9706    0.1419

Create some random longitudes.

lons = rand(4)
lons = 4×4

    0.4218    0.6557    0.6787    0.6555
    0.9157    0.0357    0.7577    0.1712
    0.7922    0.8491    0.7431    0.7060
    0.9595    0.9340    0.3922    0.0318

Bin the data in 0.5-by-0.5 degree cells (two bins per degree). The bins centered at 0.75°N are slightly smaller in area than the others. wnum reflects the relative count per normalized unit area.

[lat,lon,num,wnum] = histr(lats,lons,2);

[lat,lon,num,wnum]
ans = 4×4

    0.2500    0.2500    3.0000    3.0000
    0.7500    0.2500    2.0000    2.0002
    0.2500    0.7500    3.0000    3.0000
    0.7500    0.7500    8.0000    8.0006

Version History

Introduced before R2006a

See Also

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