Earth-sized Sphere with Topography

variation on the SPHERE command to facilitate plotting of orbital trajectories

Do you plot Earth-orbiting trajectories? Would you like to know how your orbit compares to the size of the Earth? If so, EARTH_SPHERE will help get you there.
This function is a modification of the built-in MATLAB command SPHERE. Rather than producing a sphere with a radius of 1, the radius of the sphere will equal that of the Earth. The user may specify the units they want to plot in: meters, kilometers, feet, miles, nautical miles, or astronomical units. EARTH_SPHERE will also display the Earth's topography in Earth-Centered-Earth-Fixed coordinates.

Examples:
earth_sphere('nm')
produces an earth-sized sphere in nautical miles

earth_sphere(10,'AU')
produces 10 point mesh of the Earth in astronomical units

h1 = gca;
earth_sphere(h1,'mile')
hold on
plot3(x,y,z)
produces the Earth in miles on axis h1 and plots a trajectory from variables x, y, and z