variogramfit performs a least squares fit of various theoretical variograms to an experimental, isotropic variogram. The user can choose between various bounded (e.g. spherical) and unbounded (e.g. exponential) models. A nugget variance can be modelled as well, but higher nested models are not supported.

The function works best with the function fminsearchbnd available on the FEX. You should download it from the File Exchange (File ID: #8277). If you don't have fminsearchbnd, variogramfit uses fminsearch. The problem with fminsearch is, that it might return negative variances or ranges.

Supported bounded models:
'blinear' -- bounded linear
'circular' -- circular model
'spherical' -- spherical model, =default
'pentaspherical' -- pentaspherical model

Supported unbounded functions :
'exponential' -- exponential model
'gaussian' -- gaussian variogram
'whittle' -- Whittle's elementary correlation (involves a modified Bessel function of the second kind).
'stable' -- stable models sensu Wackernagel 1995). Same as gaussian, but with different exponents. Supply the exponent alpha (<2) as an additional pn,pv-pair 'stablealpha',alpha (default = 1.5).
'matern' -- Matern model. Requires an additional pn,pv pair. 'nu',nu (shape parameter > 0, default = 1). Note that for particular values of nu the matern model reduces to other authorized variogram models. (nu = 0.5 : exponential model, nu = 1 : Whittles model, nu -> inf : Gaussian model)

References:
Wackernagel, H. (1995): Multivariate Geostatistics, Springer.
Webster, R., Oliver, M. (2001): Geostatistics for Environmental Scientists. Wiley & Sons.
Minsasny, B., McBratney, A. B. (2005): The Matérn function as general model for soil variograms. Geoderma, 3-4, 192-207.