PDL::Graphics::PLplot::Map:

A PDL interface to the GMT (Generic Mapping Tools).  This allows one to access
a detailed coastline, river, lake and national boundary database covering the
entire world.  

This package includes a function, 'fetch', which will give raw lon/lat PDLs from
the GMT database.  It also includes the PDL::Graphics::PLplot compatible routines:

worldmap   -- Draw a world map using PGPLOT
map_plot   -- Add points or lines to an existing world map, including map projection

It currently supports two projects:  

-- Linear 
-- Azimuthal Equidistant

But others can easily be added.

The following are required for installation:

-- perl 5.5 or later
-- PDL v2.1 or later with bad value support compiled in (Set WITH_BADVAL => 1 in perldl.conf)
-- the PLplot plotting package (http://plplot.sourceforge.net/)
-- the PLplot perl interface PDL::Graphics::PLplot, see CPAN.
-- the netCDF library (see http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/index.html)

INSTALLATION:

Installation should be the normal:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test

(as root)
make install

If the netcdf include or library files cannot be found, try:
   export NETCDF_LIBDIR='/ops/tools/lib'
   export NETCDF_INCDIR='/ops/tools/include'
   perl Makefile.PL
   ...

Best of luck!

Doug Hunt
dhunt@ucar.edu