SciPy (pronounced "sigh pie") is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

Python library used for

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

and technical computing. SciPy contains modules for

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

linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrix (mathemat ...

, integration,

interpolation In the mathematics, mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data points. In engineering and science, one ...

special functions Special functions are particular mathematical functions that have more or less established names and notations due to their importance in mathematical analysis, functional analysis, geometry, physics, or other applications. The term is defined by ...

fast Fourier transform A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). A Fourier transform converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in ...

signal A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

and

image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...

ordinary differential equation In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation (DE) dependent on only a single independent variable (mathematics), variable. As with any other DE, its unknown(s) consists of one (or more) Function (mathematic ...

solvers and other tasks common in science and engineering. SciPy is also a family of conferences for users and developers of these tools: SciPy (in the United States), EuroSciPy (in Europe) and SciPy.in (in India). Enthought originated the SciPy conference in the United States and continues to sponsor many of the international conferences as well as host the SciPy website. The SciPy library is currently distributed under the

BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...

, and its development is sponsored and supported by an open community of developers. It is also supported by NumFOCUS, a community foundation for supporting reproducible and accessible science.

Components

The SciPy package is at the core of Python's scientific computing capabilities. Available sub-packages include: * cluster: hierarchical clustering, vector quantization,

K-means ''k''-means clustering is a method of vector quantization, originally from signal processing, that aims to partition of a set, partition ''n'' observations into ''k'' clusters in which each observation belongs to the cluster (statistics), cluste ...

*constants:

physical constants A physical constant, sometimes fundamental physical constant or universal constant, is a physical quantity that cannot be explained by a theory and therefore must be measured experimentally. It is distinct from a mathematical constant, which has a ...

and conversion factors * fft:

Discrete Fourier Transform In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite sequence of equally-spaced Sampling (signal processing), samples of a function (mathematics), function into a same-length sequence of equally-spaced samples of the discre ...

algorithms * fftpack: Legacy interface for Discrete Fourier Transforms * integrate:

numerical integration In analysis, numerical integration comprises a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral. The term numerical quadrature (often abbreviated to quadrature) is more or less a synonym for "numerical integr ...

routines * interpolate: interpolation tools * io: data input and output * linalg: linear algebra routines * misc: miscellaneous utilities (e.g. example images) * ndimage: various functions for multi-dimensional

*ODR: orthogonal distance regression classes and algorithms * optimize: optimization algorithms including

linear programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements and objective are represented by linear function#As a polynomia ...

* signal:

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, Scalar potential, potential fields, Seismic tomograph ...

tools * sparse:

sparse matrices In numerical analysis and scientific computing, a sparse matrix or sparse array is a matrix (mathematics), matrix in which most of the elements are zero. There is no strict definition regarding the proportion of zero-value elements for a matrix ...

and related algorithms * spatial: algorithms for spatial structures such as k-d trees, nearest neighbors,

convex hull In geometry, the convex hull, convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space, ...

s, etc. * special: special functions * stats:

statistical Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

functions * weave: tool for writing C/ C++ code as Python multiline strings (now deprecated in favor of

Cython Cython () is a superset of the programming language Python, which allows developers to write Python code (with optional, C-inspired syntax extensions) that yields performance comparable to that of C. Cython is a compiled language that is ty ...

)

Data structures

The basic data structure used by SciPy is a multidimensional array provided by the NumPy module. NumPy provides some functions for linear algebra,

Fourier transform In mathematics, the Fourier transform (FT) is an integral transform that takes a function as input then outputs another function that describes the extent to which various frequencies are present in the original function. The output of the tr ...

s, and

random number generation Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols is generated that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance. This means that the particular ou ...

, but not with the generality of the equivalent functions in SciPy. NumPy can also be used as an efficient multidimensional container of data with arbitrary datatypes. This allows NumPy to seamlessly and speedily integrate with a wide variety of

databases In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and ana ...

. Older versions of SciPy used Numeric as an array type, which is now deprecated in favor of the newer NumPy array code.

History

In the 1990s, Python was extended to include an array type for numerical computing called Numeric. (This package was eventually replaced by NumPy, which was written by Travis Oliphant in 2006 as a blending of Numeric and Numarray, with Numarray itself being started in 2001.) As of 2000, there was a growing number of extension modules and increasing interest in creating a complete environment for scientific and technical computing. In 2001, Travis Oliphant, Eric Jones, and Pearu Peterson merged code they had written and called the resulting package SciPy. The newly created package provided a standard collection of common numerical operations on top of the Numeric array data structure. Shortly thereafter, Fernando Pérez released IPython, an enhanced interactive shell widely used in the technical computing community, and John Hunter released the first version of

Matplotlib Matplotlib (portmanteau of MATLAB, plot, and library) is a Plotter, plotting Library (computer science), library for the Python (programming language), Python programming language and its Numerical analysis, numerical mathematics extension NumPy. ...

, the 2D plotting library for technical computing. Since then the SciPy environment has continued to grow with more packages and tools for technical computing.

Scientific Python versus ScientificPython

In the scientific literature, SciPy is occasionally referred to as "Scientific Python (SciPy)". This is incorrect: the official name of the project is just "SciPy". Furthermore, expanding "SciPy" as "Scientific Python" may cause confusion with "ScientificPython", a project led by Konrad Hinsen of Orléans University that was active between 1995 and 2014. "Scientific Python" is also used for the related ecosystem of tools.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scipy Cross-platform software Free science software Numerical analysis software for Linux Numerical analysis software for macOS Numerical analysis software for Windows Numerical programming languages Python (programming language) scientific libraries Software using the BSD license