TopoToolbox - a set of Matlab functions for topographic analysis

TopoToolbox provides a set of Matlab functions that support the analysis of relief and flow pathways in digital elevation models. The major aim of TopoToolbox is to offer helpful analytical GIS utilities in a non-GIS environment in order to support the simultaneous application of GIS-specific and other quantitative methods.

If you have any questions or remarks, please contact the authors:

Wolfgang Schwanghart w.schwanghart[at]geo.uni-potsdam.de

Dirk Scherler scherler[at]gfz-potsdam.de

Requirements

TopoToolbox is plat-form independent and requires Matlab 2014b or higher and the Image Processing Toolbox. The Mapping Toolbox is not mandatory, but good to have to facilitate easy data exchange with GIS software.

References

When you use TopoToolbox in your work, please reference following publication:

Schwanghart, W., Scherler, D. (2014): TopoToolbox 2 – MATLAB-based software for topographic analysis and modeling in Earth surface sciences. Earth Surface Dynamics, 2, 1-7. DOI: 10.5194/esurf-2-1-2014

If you are using version 1, then please refer to this publication:

Schwanghart, W., Kuhn, N.J. (2010): TopoToolbox: a set of MATLAB functions for topographic analysis. Environmental Modelling & Software, 25, 770-781. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.12.002

Getting started

Before working with TopoToolbox the functions need to be on the search path of Matlab. Enter following code into the command line:

    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\utilities
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\IOtools
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\GIStools
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\topoapp
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\DEMdata
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\ttlem
    addpath C:\path\to\wherever\you\installed\this\TopoToolbox-2\colormaps

You may then either look at the user's guide to get an idea of how the toolbox works or you may run some of the many examples in the help block of each function (help function). An additional resource for code and examples is the TopoToolbox blog.

Version History

2.2

TTLEM is part of TopoToolbox
new functions for smoothing and hydrological correction: STREAMobj/crs, STREAMobj/crsapp, STREAMobj/smooth, STREAMobj/crslin, STREAMobj/quantcarve, FLOWobj/quantcarve
modification: GRIDobj way to store referencing information was changed
modification: FLOWobj now supports multiple flow directions and Dinf.
modification: several new options for imageschs
new function: FLOWobj/dbentropy
new function: FLOWobj/updatetoposort
new function: GRIDobj/aggregate
new function: GRIDobj/createmask
new function: GRIDobj/dist2line
new function: GRIDobj/dist2curve
new function: GRIDobj/line2GRIDobj
new function: GRIDobj/GRIDobj2pm
new function: GRIDobj/minmaxnorm
new function: GRIDobj/reclabel
new function: GRIDobj/zscore
new function: GRIDobj/pad
new function: STREAMobj/aggregate
new function: STREAMobj/labelreach
new function: STREAMobj/distance
new function: STREAMobj/drainagedensity
new function: STREAMobj/plotc
new function: STREAMobj/plotdzshaded
new function: STREAMobj/meanupstream
new function: STREAMobj/plot3
new function: STREAMobj/chitransform
new function: STREAMobj/cumtrapz
modification: STREAMobj/modify includes option rmconncomps
new function: STREAMobj/mchi
new function: STREAMobj/conncomps
modification: STREAMobj/extractconncomps (new GUI and behavior)
modification: STREAMobj/union (new syntax)
modification: STREAMobj/intersect (new syntax)
new function: STREAMobj/isnal
new function: STREAMobj/info
new function: STREAMobj/orientation
new function: STREAMobj/plotstreamorder
new function: STREAMobj/removeedgeeffects
new function: STREAMobj/split
new function: STREAMobj/streamproj
new function: STREAMobj/networksegment
new function: STREAMobj/maplateral
new function: STREAMobj/plotsegmentgeometry
new function: STREAMobj/randlocs
new function: STREAMobj/zerobaselevel
modification: STREAMobj/streamorder plotting option removed
modification: STREAMobj/plotdz includes custom distance option
modification: STREAMobj/distance includes option to derive distance from different STREAMobj
modification: STREAMobj/STREAMobj2cell
modification: STREAMobj/STREAMobj2mapstruct
new function: STREAMobj/transformcoords
new function: FLOWobj/FLOWobj2cell
update to several FLOWobj methods to avoid speed loss for MATLAB versions newer than R2015b
removed bug in GRIDobj/curvature

2.1

new function: GRIDobj/excesstopography
new function: GRIDobj/GRIDobj2polygon
new function: STREAMobj/getnal
new function: STREAMobj/sidebranching
new function: STREAMobj/mincosthydrocon
new function: STREAMobj/intersectlocs
new function: STREAMobj/densify
new function: STREAMobj/plot3d
new function: STREAMobj/widenstream
new function: demo_modifystreamnet
modification of the function slopearea
better performance of FLOWobj when converting from flow direction matrix by using dmperm to perform topological sort
new function: GRIDobj/toposhielding
new function: demarea (incorporation of Juernjakob Dugge's function: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/42204-calculate-dem-surface-area )
new function: GRIDobj/getoutline
removed a bug when some functions such log, log10 were called with integer GRIDobjs
additional overloading of built-in functions for GRIDobjs. We added matrix arithmetics, which, however, perform element-wise operations (e.g. mtimes can be used with GRIDobj now, but performs times)
the scope of the function GRIDobj/localtopography was enhanced (min, max, percentiles, etc in a disk-shaped neighborhood)
FLOWobj/streampoi and STREAMobj/streampoi now return 'bconfluences', e.g. stream pixels that in downstream direction are located immediately before confluences.
new function: STREAMobj/imposemin - limits downstream minima imposition to the stream network
several bug fixes
demo_modifystreamnet.m
preprocessapp was removed

V2.0.1

removed bug in GRIDobj
removed bug with case-sensitivity in some functions
removed bug with internal drainage option in FLOWobj

V2.0

new functions STREAMobj/intersect, STREAMobj/union
new interactive tools in STREAMobj/modify
new interactive tool GRIDobj/measure

V2.0beta

V2.0 introduces an object oriented approach towards grid representation, flow direction, stream networks and swath objects. The performance of various, inparticular flow related, functions was increased. Mex-files have been written to increase the speed of some functions and are delivered as 64bit Windows binaries. They have been compiled on Windows 7 with an Intel processor, so they should be compiled before using them, if your system differs. However, compiling is not mandatory, since m versions are available, too, which are a little slower. Please refer to the Contents.m file for a complete list of functions.

V1.06 --- 11. November 2011

new function: acv
new function: cropmat
new function: dbentropy
new function: deminpaint
new function: exaggerate
new function: label2poly
new function: routegeodesic (as optimal method for routing through flats and pits). Requires Matlab 2011b and will be made the default routing algorithm in future releases.
new function: upslopesidelength
new function: upslopestats
new function: getextent and setextent
function enhancements: rasterread and rasterwrite.
function enhancements: roughness
new users guide on processing flat areas
the baranja_hill.mat dataset was added. It was obtained from here: http://geomorphometry.org/content/baranja-hill

V1.05 --- 15. September 2010

some of the functions now employ the function validateattributes to check input arguments. Note that this might return a warning on older versions than 2009a.
a bug in routeflats was removed
new function: M2UV
new function: twi
new function: aspect
new function: ismulti
new function: postprocflats
new function: demsobel
new function: hypscurve
new function: roughness
removed bug in flowacc. flowacc returned an error when called with three input arguments
gradient8 allows you to output different angular units, major speed increase when called with gradient as sole output argument.
functional enhancements to flowdistance (see help flowdistance)
functional enhancements to identifyflats
rasterread and rasterwrite now feature dialog boxes for reading and saving files if no filenames are supplied to the function
flowdistanceds can now calculate the maximum downward flowpath distance for each cell at one step.

V1.04 --- 5. January 2010 - first public release

a bug in flowacc_lm was removed. When a weight matrix W0 was supplied as additional input argument, W0 was set to dem.
new function: imageschs
minor changes to hillshade were made. The algorithm is now based on method proposed by Katzil and Doytsher, 2003.
flowacc allows for another input argument (runoff ratio).

V1.03 --- 5. November 2009

sub-basin analysis has been added as new functionality (see sbstruct, sbplot, sbprops)
new function: adjustgauges

V1.02 --- 30. October 2009

major speed enhancement for fillsinks with maximum fill depth

V1.01 --- 16. September 2009

hillshade plots the hillshade matrix when no output arguments are defined.
flowacc_lm was optimized, so that large, flat areas are handled more memory efficiently.
a bug in routeflats was removed.
crossflats was updated to run most efficient on Matlab R2009a.
drainagebasins functionality was enhanced to allow for the delineation of drainage basins of specified order. The former support of multiple flow direction has been removed.
new function: drainagedensity
new function: shufflelabel
influencemap got a second output Mstreams

V1.0 --- 15. March 2009

release

shiph0326/topotoolbox