Study of Free Alternative Numerical Computation Packages
| dc.contributor.author | Brewster, Matthew W. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-10-26T13:16:17Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-10-26T13:16:17Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2011 | |
| dc.description | Copyright © 2011, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Matlab is the most popular commercial package for numerical computations in mathematics, statistics, the sciences, engineering, and other fields. Octave, FreeMat, and Scilab are free numerical computational packages that have many of the same features as Matlab. They are available to download on the Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems. We investigate whether these packages are viable alternatives to Matlab for uses in teaching and research. We compare the packages under Linux on one compute node with two quad-core Intel Nehalem processors (2.66 GHz, 8 MB cache) and 24 GB of memory that is part of an 86-node distributed-memory cluster. After performing both usability and performance tests on Matlab, Octave, FreeMat, and Scilab, we conclude that Octave is the most usable and most powerful freely available numerical computation package. Both FreeMat and Scilab exhibited some incompatibility with Matlab and some performance problems in our tests. Therefore, we conclude that Octave is the best viable alternative to Matlab because not only was it fully compatible with Matlab, but it also exhibited the best performance. This paper reports on work done while working for the REU Site: Interdisciplinary Program in High Performance Computing at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | The facility is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through the MRI program (grant no. CNS–0821258) and the SCREMS program (grant no. DMS–0821311), with additional substantial support from UMBC. See www.umbc.edu/hpcf for more information on HPCF and the projects using its resources. | |
| dc.description.uri | https://archive.siam.org/students/siuro/vol5/S01178.pdf | en_US |
| dc.format.extent | 23 pages | en_US |
| dc.genre | undergaduate journal article | en_US |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.13016/M2SF2MG2Q | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Matthew W. Brewster, Study of Free Alternative Numerical Computation Packages, SIAM Undergraduate Research Online (SIURO), 5, 2012. https://archive.siam.org/students/siuro/vol5/S01178.pdf | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11603/11739 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics | en_US |
| dc.relation.isAvailableAt | The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Mathematics Department Collection | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Faculty Collection | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Student Collection | |
| dc.rights | This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author. | |
| dc.rights | Copyright © 2012, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics | |
| dc.subject | Numerical Computation | en_US |
| dc.subject | Matlab | en_US |
| dc.subject | FreeMat | en_US |
| dc.subject | Scilab | en_US |
| dc.subject | UMBC High Performance Computing Facility (HPCF) | en_US |
| dc.title | Study of Free Alternative Numerical Computation Packages | en_US |
| dc.type | Text | en_US |