Octave

What is Octave?
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Octave is an open-source interactive software system for numerical computations and graphics, highly compatible with MATLAB, which is :-
- particularly designed for matrix computations,
- solving simultaneous equations,computing eigen vectors and eigen values
- and exploring deep into DSP, circuit analysis and so on....

( Yes, everything which scares the Mickey off almost every engineering student in initial years :) )

In addition, Octave can display data in a variety of different ways, and it also has its own extensible programming language . It canbe thought of as a very powerful, programmable, graphical calculator. Octave makes it easy to solve a wide range of numerical problems.

Octave was originally developed (hmmm.. in 1988 ) as a companion software to a undergraduate coursebook on chemical reactor design being written by James B. Rawlings of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and John G. Ekerdt of the University of Texas.

It is currently being developed under the leadership ofDr. J.W. Eaton and released under the GNU General Public Licence. Octave’s usefulnessis enhanced in that it is mostly syntax compatible with MATLAB which is commonly used in industry and academia.

"Ye ye !! big deal !!! never heard of anyone using it!! "

Well,

• NASA use it to develop spacecraft docking systems;
• Jaguar Racing use it to display and analyse data transmitted from their Formula 1 cars;
• Sheffield University use it to develop software to recognise cancerous cells;
• Pittsburgh supercomputing center used it to find vulnerability related to guessing social security numbers.

It makes it very easy to write mathematical programs quickly, and display data in a wide range ofdifferent ways.

** Write up sourced from Dr. P.J.G. Long's paper and Octave official site.

http://www.octave.org