Development Environment

Working with HDF Data

Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a general-purpose, machine-independent standard for storing scientific data in files. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the original developer of HDF, distributes libraries of C and Fortran routines that scientists use to read and write data in HDF format.

This section describes how to call these NCSA routines from within MATLAB. Topics include:

• An overview of MATLAB HDF support
• MATLAB HDF function calling conventions
• Importing HDF data into the MATLAB workspace
• Exporting MATLAB data in an HDF file
• Including metadata in an HDF file
• Using MATLAB specific HDF functions

Additional Information Sources

This section does not attempt to describe all HDF features and routines. To use the MATLAB HDF interface effectively, you must use this documentation in conjunction with the official HDF documentation, available in many formats at the NCSA Web site (http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/). In particular, consult the following documentation:

• The HDF User's Guide, which describes key HDF concepts and programming models and provides tutorial information about using the library routines
• The HDF Reference Manual, which provides detailed reference information about the hundreds of HDF routines, their arguments, and return values

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has created an extension of HDF as one of the data standards for the Earth Observing System (EOS). For information about this extension to HDF, consult the official HDF-EOS documentation at the EOS Web site
(http://hdfeos.gsfc.nasa.gov/hdfeos/workshop.html).

Finally, for details about the syntax of the MATLAB HDF functions, consult the MATLAB online Function Reference. For most HDF routines, the MATLAB syntax is essentially the same as the HDF version; however, for certain routines, the MATLAB version has a different syntax.

Exporting MATLAB Graphs in AVI Format

Overview of MATLAB HDF Support