grdinfo - Extract information from grids
grdinfo grdfiles [ -C ] [ -F ] [ -I[dx[/dy]|r|b] ] [ -L[0|1|2] ] [ -M ] [ -Rregion ] [ -T[s]dz ] [ -V[level] ] [ -f<flags> ]
Note: No space is allowed between the option flag and the associated arguments.
grdinfo reads a 2-D binary grid file and reports metadata and various statistics for the (x,y,z) data in the grid file(s). The output information contains the minimum/maximum values for x, y, and z, where the min/max of z occur, the x- and y-increments, and the number of x and y nodes, and [optionally] the mean, standard deviation, and/or the median, L1 scale of z, and number of nodes set to NaN. We also report if the grid is pixel- or gridline-registered and if it is a Cartesian or Geographic data set (based on metadata in the file).
By default GMT writes out grid as single precision floats in a COARDS-complaint netCDF file format. However, GMT is able to produce grid files in many other commonly used grid file formats and also facilitates so called “packing” of grids, writing out floating point data as 1- or 2-byte integers. To specify the precision, scale and offset, the user should add the suffix =id[/scale/offset[/nan]], where id is a two-letter identifier of the grid type and precision, and scale and offset are optional scale factor and offset to be applied to all grid values, and nan is the value used to indicate missing data. In case the two characters id is not provided, as in =/scale than a id=nf is assumed. When reading grids, the format is generally automatically recognized. If not, the same suffix can be added to input grid file names. See grdconvert and Section Grid file format specifications of the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook for more information.
When reading a netCDF file that contains multiple grids, GMT will read, by default, the first 2-dimensional grid that can find in that file. To coax GMT into reading another multi-dimensional variable in the grid file, append ?varname to the file name, where varname is the name of the variable. Note that you may need to escape the special meaning of ? in your shell program by putting a backslash in front of it, or by placing the filename and suffix between quotes or double quotes. The ?varname suffix can also be used for output grids to specify a variable name different from the default: “z”. See grdconvert and Sections Modifiers for COARDS-compliant netCDF files and Grid file format specifications of the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook for more information, particularly on how to read splices of 3-, 4-, or 5-dimensional grids.
To obtain all the information about the data set in file hawaii_topo.nc:
gmt grdinfo -L1 -L2 -M hawaii_topo.nc