geotickformat

Set or query geographic tick label format

Syntax

geotickformat(fmt)

geotickformat(ax,fmt)

fmtOut = geotickformat

fmtOut = geotickformat(ax)

Description

Set Tick Format

geotickformat(fmt) sets the format of the latitude and longitude tick labels for the current geographic axes or map axes. If the current axes is not a geographic or map axes, or if there is no current axes, then the function creates a new geographic axes with the specified tick label format.

You can specify the fmt argument without parentheses. For example, geotickformat dd sets the tick label format to decimal degrees.

geotickformat(ax,fmt) sets the tick label format for the geographic axes or map axes specified by ax.

Query Tick Format

fmtOut = geotickformat returns the tick label format for the current geographic axes or map axes.

fmtOut = geotickformat(ax) returns the tick label format for the axes specified by ax.

Examples

Set Geographic Tick Label Format

Specify the locations and names of three cities in Brazil.

lat = [-23.55 -22.91 -15.79];
lon = [-46.63 -43.2 -47.8828];
n = [" Sao Paulo"," Rio de Janeiro"," Brasilia"];

Display the locations and names using filled markers over the bluegreen basemap.

geoscatter(lat,lon,"filled")
text(lat,lon,n)
geobasemap bluegreen
geolimits([-24.8 -14.5],[-54.6 -37.1])

Change the tick label format to decimal degrees. The -dd option indicates south and west using a minus sign (–).

geotickformat -dd

Input Arguments

fmt — Tick label format

"dms" (default) | "dd" | "dm" | "-dd" | "-dm" | "-dms"

Tick label format, specified as one of the following values.

Format	Description	Example
"dd"	Decimal degrees plus compass direction	23°N
"dm"	Degrees and decimal minutes plus compass direction	18°30'W
"dms" (default)	Degrees, minutes, and decimal seconds plus compass direction	110°06'18.5"E
"-dd"	Decimal degrees with a minus sign (–) to indicate south and west	-115.25°
"-dm"	Degrees and decimal minutes with a minus sign (–) to indicate south and west	-5°45.5'
"-dms"	Degrees, minutes, and decimal seconds with a minus sign (–) to indicate south and west	-3°21'05"

Data Types: char | string

ax — Target axes

GeographicAxes object | MapAxes object

Target axes, specified as a GeographicAxes object¹ or MapAxes (Mapping Toolbox™) object.

If you do not specify this argument, then the geotickformat function sets the tick format for the current axes, provided that the current axes is a geographic or map axes object.

Output Arguments

fmtOut — Output tick label format

"dms" | "dd" | "dm" | "-dd" | "-dm" | "-dms"

Output tick label format, returned as "dms", "dd", "dm", "-dd", "-dm", or "-dms". For more information about these values, see the fmt input argument.

Tips

• The geotickformat function queries the format stored in the TickLabelFormat property of the axes.

• For geographic axes, if you override the format for an individual axis by setting the TickLabelFormat property of the GeographicRuler object associated with the axes, then the value returned by the geotickformat function does not match the format of the axis or the displayed map. Setting the TickLabelFormat property of an individual axis is not recommended.

Version History

Introduced in R2019a