Scilab
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 A Screenshot of Scilab Running |
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| Developed by | INRIA / Digiteo |
|---|---|
| Latest release | 5.1.0 / 2009-02-12 |
| Operating system | Linux, UNIX, Windows |
| Type | Technical computing |
| License | CeCILL |
| Website | www.scilab.org |
Scilab is a numerical computational package developed since 1990 by researchers from the INRIA and the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC). Since the creation of the Scilab consortium in May 2003, it is developed and maintained by the INRIA.[1]
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[edit] Overview
Scilab is a high level, numerically oriented programming language. The language provides a an interpreted programming environment, with matrices as the main data type. By utilizing matrix based computation, dynamic typing and automatic memory management, many numerical problems may be expressed in a reduced number of code lines, as compared to similar solutions using traditional languages, such as Fortran, C or C++. This allows users to rapidly construct models for a range of mathematical problems. While the language provides simple matrix operations such as multiplication, the Scilab package also provides a library of high level operations such as correlation and complex multidimensional arithmetic. The software can be used for signal processing, statistical analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simulations and numerical optimization.[2][3] Scilab also includes a package called Scicos for modeling and simulation of explicit and implicit dynamical systems, including both continuous and discrete sub-systems.
As the syntax of Scilab is similar to MATLAB, Scilab includes a source code translator for assisting the conversion of code from MATLAB to Scilab. Scilab is available free of cost under an open source license. Due to the open source nature of the software, some user contributions have been integrated into the main program.
[edit] License
Scilab family 5 is distributed under the GPL-compatible CeCILL license.
Prior to version 5, Scilab was semi-free software according to the nomenclature of the Free Software Foundation. The reason for this is that the earlier versions license prohibited of commercial distribution of modified versions of Scilab, contradicting clause 6 of the open source definition.
[edit] Syntax
Scilab syntax is largely based on the MATLAB language. The simplest way to execute Scilab code is to type it in at the prompt, --> , in the graphical command window. In this way, Scilab can be used as an interactive mathematical shell.
[edit] References
- ^ "SCILAB Consortium launched". 2003. http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw54/gomez.html.
- ^ Holopainen, Timo (2000). "Modelling and simulation of multitechnological machine systems". http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/symposiums/2001/S209.pdf.
- ^ Guenther, Raidl (May 1998). "An improved genetic algorithm for the multiconstrained 0-1 knapsackproblem". Evolutionary Computation Proceedings. doi:. ISBN 0780348699.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Campbell, S.; Chancelier J.-P., Nikoukhah R. (2006). Modeling and Simulation in Scilab/Scicos. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-27802-5.
[edit] External links
- Scilab site
- Scilab online help index (English)
- Video tutorials on Scilab from IIT Bombay, Creative Commons share-alike license
- Image processing toolkit for Scilab
