Scilab is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

, cross-platform numerical computational package and a

high-level High-level and low-level, as technical terms, are used to classify, describe and point to specific goals of a systematic operation; and are applied in a wide range of contexts, such as, for instance, in domains as widely varied as computer scienc ...

, numerically oriented

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

. It can be used for

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniq ...

, statistical analysis,

image enhancement Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such ...

fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...

simulations,

numerical optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

, and modeling, simulation of explicit and implicit

dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a Function (mathematics), function describes the time dependence of a Point (geometry), point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a ...

s and (if the corresponding toolbox is installed) symbolic manipulations. Scilab is one of the two major open-source alternatives to

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation ...

, the other one being

GNU Octave GNU Octave is a high-level programming language primarily intended for scientific computing and numerical computation. Octave helps in solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a langu ...

. Scilab puts less emphasis on syntactic compatibility with MATLAB than Octave does, but it is similar enough that some authors suggest that it is easy to transfer skills between the two systems.

Introduction

Scilab is a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. The language provides an interpreted programming environment, with

matrices Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...

as the main

data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a set of possible values and a set of allowed operations on it. A data type tells the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to use the data. Most progra ...

. By using matrix-based computation,

dynamic typing In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a type to every "term" (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usually the terms are various constructs of a computer progra ...

, and

automatic memory management In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory which was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called '' garbage''. ...

, 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++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

. This allows users to rapidly construct

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

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 In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

and complex multidimensional arithmetic. Scilab also includes a free package called

Xcos Scilab is a free and open-source, cross-platform numerical computational package and a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. It can be used for signal processing, statistical analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simu ...

for modeling and simulation of explicit and implicit dynamical systems, including both continuous and discrete sub-systems. Xcos is the open source equivalent to

Simulink Simulink is a MATLAB-based graphical programming environment for modeling, simulating and analyzing multidomain dynamical systems. Its primary interface is a graphical block diagramming tool and a customizable set of block libraries. It offers t ...

from the MathWorks. As the

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

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 An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...

. Due to the open source nature of the software, some user contributions have been integrated into the main program.

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 Prompt may refer to: Computing * Command prompt, characters indicating the computer is ready to accept input * Command Prompt, also known as cmd.exe or cmd, the command-line interpreter in some operating systems * Prompt (natural language), instr ...

, --> , in the graphical command window. In this way, Scilab can be used as an interactive mathematical

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

. Hello World! in Scilab: disp('Hello World'); Plotting a 3D surface function: // A simple plot of z = f(x,y) t= :0.3:2*%pi; z=sin(t)*cos(t'); plot3d(t,t',z)

Toolboxes

Scilab has many contributed toolboxes for different tasks, such as *

Scilab Image Processing SIP is a toolbox for processing images in Scilab. SIP is meant to be a free, complete, and useful image toolbox for Scilab. Its goals include tasks such as filtering, blurring, edge detection, thresholding, histogram manipulation, image segmentat ...

Toolbox (SIP) and its variants (such as SIVP) * Scilab Wavelet Toolbox * Scilab Java and .NET Module * Scilab Remote Access Module More are available on ATOMS Portal or the Scilab forge.

History

Scilab was created in 1990 by researchers from

INRIA The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...

and

École nationale des ponts et chaussées École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(ENPC). It was initially named Ψlab ''(Psilab)''. The Scilab Consortium was formed in May 2003 to broaden contributions and promote Scilab as worldwide reference software in academia and industry. In July 2008, in order to improve the technology transfer, the Scilab Consortium joined the Digiteo Foundation. Scilab 5.1, the first release compiled for Mac, was available in early 2009, and supported Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a.

Leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

. Thus, OSX 10.4,

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

, was never supported except by porting from sources.

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

builds had been released since the beginning, with

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

support dropped with version 3.1.1, and

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Ser ...

dropped with version 4.1.2 after spotty support. In June 2010, the Consortium announced the creation of Scilab Enterprises. Scilab Enterprises develops and markets, directly or through an international network of affiliated services providers, a comprehensive set of services for Scilab users. Scilab Enterprises also develops and maintains the Scilab software. The ultimate goal of Scilab Enterprises is to help make the use of Scilab more effective and easy. In February 2017 Scilab 6.0.0 was released which leveraged the latest C++ standards and lifted memory allocation limitations. Since July 2012, Scilab is developed and published by Scilab Enterprises and in early 2017 Scilab Enterprises was acquired by Virtual Prototyping pioneer

ESI Group ESI Group provides virtual prototyping software that simulates a product's behavior during testing, manufacturing and real-life use. Engineers in a variety of industries use its software to evaluate the performance of proposed designs in the earl ...

Since 2019 and Scilab 6.0.2, th
University of Technology of Compiègne
provides resources to build and maintain the macOS version.

Scilab Cloud App & Scilab Cloud API

Since 2016 Scilab can be embedded in a browser and be called via an interface written in Scilab or an API. This new deployment method has the notable advantages of masking code & data as well as providing large computational power. These features have not been included in the open source version of Scilab and are still proprietary developments.

References

External links

Scilab website
{{Authority control Array programming languages Free educational software Free mathematics software Free software programmed in Fortran Numerical analysis software for Linux Numerical analysis software for macOS Numerical analysis software for Windows Numerical programming languages Science software that uses GTK