[SubRT] GSHHS, High Resolution Shoreline Database

Subroutine: GSHHS_PLOT.pro by Liam Gumley's IDL web page.
Data : NOAA National Geophysical Data Center(NGDC)

High resolution map provided in IDL sometimes dose not looks so high enough.

NOAA/NGDC's Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline (GSHHS) database from high resolution satellite observation show perfect for mapping of local scale data mapping. Look at the following figures comparing (left) shoreline from IDL's default map and (right) that from GSHHS. Advantage of GSHHS is that it can fill islands but IDL's cannot.


(Figure from IDL Korean user's group)

For use of GSHHS,

1. download GSHHS database files from NOAA/NGDC or Liam's web and extract them.

gshhs_f.b : Full Resolution, gshhs_h.b : High Resolution, gshhs_i.b : Intermediate Resolution (simmilar to IDL's high resolution map) gshhs_l.b : Low Resolution(simmilar to IDL's low resolution map)

2. copy them to IDL's library folder.

Reference; Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith (1996), A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 8741-8743.