MATLAB 7.11

Analyzing and Accessing Data

MATLAB^® supports the entire data analysis process, from acquiring data from external devices and databases, through preprocessing, visualization, and numerical analysis, to producing presentation-quality output.

Data Analysis

The MATLAB product provides interactive tools and command-line functions for data analysis operations, including:

• Interpolating and decimating
• Extracting sections of data, scaling, and averaging
• Thresholding and smoothing
• Correlation, Fourier analysis, and filtering
• 1-D peak, valley, and zero finding
• Basic statistics and curve fitting
• Matrix analysis

Plot showing curve fitted to the monthly averaged atmospheric pressure differences between Easter Island and Darwin, Australia.

Data Access

MATLAB is an efficient platform for accessing data from files, other applications, databases, and external devices. You can read data from popular file formats, such as Microsoft Excel; ASCII text or binary files; image, sound, and video files; and scientific files, such as HDF and HDF5. Low-level binary file I/O functions let you work with data files in any format. Additional functions let you read data from Web pages and XML.


You can call other applications and languages, such as C, C++, COM objects, DLLs, Java, Fortran, and Microsoft Excel, and access FTP sites and Web services. Using the Database Toolbox™, you can also access data from ODBC/JDBC-compliant databases.


You can acquire data from hardware devices, such as your computer‘s serial port or sound card. Using the Data Acquisition Toolbox™ , you can stream live, measured data directly into MATLAB for analysis and visualization. The Instrument Control Toolbox™ (available separately) enables communication with GPIB and VXI hardware.

HDF data from a satellite, selected and imported into MATLAB using the MATLAB HDF Import Tool.