Re: LUG: Matlab vs GNU octave - Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:17:49 -0400

Subject : Re: LUG: Matlab vs GNU octave

From : Kevin Hunter <hunteke@earlham.[redacted]>

Date : Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:17:49 -0400

At 1:48am -0400 Fri, 24 Sep 2010, Praveen Bharadwaj wrote:
> Does anyone know if there are tools like fvtool and fdatool (in
> Matlab) available in GNU octave? Or is it possible to port them to
> octave

Yes, if they don't exist, it's possible to port them. Octave advertizes
that it "[uses] a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab." In
my experience, it's about 98% compatible.

One of the common criticisms of Octave is that almost everything is
possible, but you have to find it or write it. For my uses, it's most
definitely on par with Matlab. Nonetheless, packaging is indeed one
area where the latter wins.

However, I don't do a lot of directly interactive graphical work. As
Octave outsources many of it's graphical functions, its interactive
graphic capabilities are limited to what Gnuplot supports. (Don't get
me wrong, Gnuplot is also extremely powerful -- and I don't know of a
direct proprietary alternative -- but its capabilities only partially
overlap what Octave perhaps needs.)

I don't know exactly what fvtool does, but after a brief look at the
toolbox page, I imagine that if you can't find an Octave version of it
directly, you could fairly easily* port it.

Kevin

* The definition of "fairly easily" will vary depending on one's
knowledge of the underlying algorithm, and Matlab/Octave capabilities.
Additionally, if you're more comfortable with another language, Octave
provides for the ability to call externally compiled functions.

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Re: LUG: Matlab vs GNU octave